The return of rain.... Mt Killiecrankie under a gathering storm...

It was a strange night, the relatively warm Nor'wester backed to a chill and clammy Nor'easter, the smell of rain was in the air and a table cloth of cloud enveloped Mt Killiecrankie and Mt Blyth. All day the cloud hung around and the humidity increased as did the chill. At first there were just tiny droplets of a scotch mist then drizzle, and with a few dancing gusts the rain came tumbling out of the east... This silvery scene is the view from my window.

Drought is very much part of the Australian landscape and specially this part of the world. For many tens of thousands of years these islands have long been a very dry place. Their position in the lee of the prevailing westerly gales, is in the rainshadow of the major peaks of Tasmania. Only the remnants of these westerly storms, having spent the fluid rage on the ancient Precambrian monoliths of the West Coast and the Jurassic high plateau gets to water these lands of well worn Devonian Granite and limestone. However their exposed position in the middle of Bass Strait between Tasmania and the Australian mainland means they experience more than their fair share of wind. The evaporo-transpiration rate or the loss of rainfall due to wind/sun evaporation is extremely high, which much of the west coast and many of the island constantly blanketed in a shroud of salt laden spray. This area during the last iceage was just part of the giant "Bassian Plain" that connected Tasmania and Australia. During this period it was very barren windswept sandy expanse with these islands being the only small mountains in a flat very dry bitterly cold area of grassy steppes. This are would have been a cold desert then very similar to that of the plains of Patagonia in Southern Argentina.

The rain has returned and I can hear the trickle on the tin roof and the drip drip falling into the tanks now becoming a constant gush, the clouds have swallowed Mt Killiecrankie in their humid blanket and the scene now turned and inky black... I am finished with the paint brush for another day ..... A few of my words... about what has man has done to further hasten climate.. change...

The Green House Land of Hot House Humans

Scorching sun melts the air,
whisping smoke rose from the sullen seared plain,
rain had not fallen,
...... had rain ever fall since remembered time?
That haunting winds always burning,
petrified black-charred stumps,
choking in an understory of inert grey ash,
the shell of an enghosted once mighty forest.
In meandering stream beds,
only blowing dust and death flows,
glaciers that once loomed large then vanished,
leave behind in their wake,
a deeply scoured grave of arid shattered stone,
those razor-beams of sunlight,
mercilessly lacerate the land,
in invisible ultraviolet,
even the emerald lakes have now become,
just giant festered soars,
of shrinking mud and stinking slime.
Did I dream,
knee-deep green grass once dwelt here?
but beneath the drifting sand,
cant I hear the water flow?
Why?
Why didn't we stop the poisoning of the air,
the warming of the land,
the rising and silting of the sea,
the piercing of that invisible membrane in the sky,
letting in those fierce cancer rays,
fingers of death,
with extinction and destruction following,
in their path.
Man and only man,
in wanton greed and selfishness,
is bringing about the annihilation of life on earth,
and even the death of his own kind,
but even in hindsight,
would we do it,
in the name of "progress:,
..............just the same?

Rhuari Hannan Oct 88 Comalco Bell Bay TASMANIA