Of weekends away and interesting homecomings

Date: 19 October 2008 09:29:56

This is one of the little friends we made at Cr*dle Mountain Ch*teau this weekend.

This is a view of Mt Roland, taken on the way home from our weekend away.

This is what we found happening at home when we got home ...

and this

and finally this

3km's away from us luckily, at the end of the road along the beachfront ... 'luckily' the wind is blowing it into the National Park, and at this point I don't think any houses have gone ... and hopefully the bushwalkers who were apparently up behind it have made it across the ridge and been picked up on the beach .... and so the bushfire season in this part of Tasmania has obviously begun! It was quite interesting actually as my only experience is with gum tree type fires which tend to move very quickly with a wind behind them .. this one moved fast but with nothing like the speed I was expecting - apparently tea tree scrub tends to flare up massively and burn down to the ground before moving on ... which was evidenced when the fire hit a patch of gum trees at the top of the ridge and took off like a mad thing. Half of the community was down at the boat ramp watching ... within a couple of hundred metres of the fire, and within 50 metres in some areas ... Mr TAsmania has just headed off to walk the dog and see how it's going - 2 of the 5 fire trucks which were in attendance have headed back out, so we're assuming it's pretty much under control now ... and the wind seems to have dropped a bit ...