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Dec 01 '01 1 2 3 4
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Storms and Rain, Andamooka, Outback South Australia September 30th to October 2nd, 2003. Well, what an adventure this trip turned out to be! Myself and my mate Jack from work came up to Andamooka to peg a claim and have a go at finding some opal. I am a seasoned opal mining campaigner, but Jacky is an eager newy and since he had been bugging me so much I decided to take him up and show him how its done.
The trip we planned was nine days in duration, the first six were as we hoped with nothing other than beautiful blue sky and fine sunny weather as shown by the pics below:
Its worth paying money to see sky this blue! -
However, things got a bit less tidy late on the sixth day. It started to rain lightly but steadily late in the afternoon and we knocked off work and came home to the shack. We got cleaned up and ready to walk down the pub to have a countery. As we were walking down to the pub, while the light rain was still falling, I could see some thicker and darker cloud out to the north, I remarked to Jacky "I reckon this rain could get a bit heavier and we might get some storms". Not two minutes later, as we were nearly at the pub we both saw a quick brightening of the sky to the north. It was the first lightning, I said to jack, "told ya". The storm was a fair way off and tea and beer were on our minds so we went into the pub.
After probably 45 minutes, I noticed flashes of light shining on all the houses across the road, knowing that the storms must be getting reasonably close I went out to have a look. Sure enough, despite being in somewhat of a depression (the main street of Andamooka is a creek) spotted some ripper CG's which were nice and clear due to the fact that they werent obscured by any heavy rain. I stayed and watched for a while and kinda wanted to go home and grab my camera gear and take pics, but jack wasnt interested in heading off just yet, still too dry he reckoned, so I went back in and had a few more beers. That storm didnt actually strike Andamooka directly, it skirted just north and east of the township, missing it by a mere 5km. By continuing to watch the reflected flashes from inside I determined that the storm was close enough for good photos for about 45 minutes - so I would have got a heap of good pics, but sometimes you just have to make the sacrifices - its a tough life drinking beer, eating good food and listening to opal mining stories! Anyway jacky was happy to stay until that storm went away which corresponded in a drop in the rain, so we took the opportunity to walk back home. On the trip home there was a few weak flashes out to the east, which was what could still be seen of the first storm. As we walked home and reached progressively higher ground it became evident there was a weak storm out the the west and south west and further away to the west and north some good active storms. Our pace hastened. I got home, got the cameras out and took some shots of the closer but weaker storm to the southwest. All I got was a couple of crap pics, the lightning was infrequent and scattered:
After these I gave up on this storm. By the way, there had been so much rain by this stage that it was impossible to get my car out of the yard, so that is where all the photos are taken from! The better storms out to the west and north west were still a fair way off so I had a break for a while and went and got another beer..........(next page) |
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