Campfire

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Just follow the freakin rules

On Saturday morning, a 77 year old man was killed after being hit by a cyclist on Beach Rd in Mentone. That someone was killed walking in front of a bicycle is not surprising. Pretty much anyone who rides a bike in Melbourne will have had a pedestrian walk in front of them without looking at one time or another. The difference in this case is that this man was killed crossing with the 'green man' at pedestrian lights, by a 'peleton' of 200+ unofficially organised amateur riders that were either unable, or unwilling to break the bunch and stop in time. I can't help but think that bike/car relations in Melbourne are reaching some sort of crisis point. My daily ride to and from work, mainly along bike-friendly back streets, attracts abuse from motorists (and pedestrians) probably once a week on average. People hate bike riders. As a cyclist, the contempt with which I am treated by those in cars and pedestrians is really quite confronting. A short ride is enough...
Read more

Black Saturday

Image
Last Friday afternoon, John Brumby made what seemed like a ridiculous statement, that Saturday could be "the worst day ever in the history of the state." A combination of very high temperatures, extreme winds and bushland dried out by years of drought certainly had potential for something very nasty, but did anyone really think it would happen? There's been a lot of speculation that the reason for the staggering number of fatalities (it's currently 130 but is expected to go considerably higher) is due to the fact that people have forgotten Ash Wednesday. Not that it occurred, or that it was bad, but just how ferocious a fire can be. I was at the beach - Airey's Inlet, where folks are rightly spooked by fire (it was almost entirely destroyed in 1983). We knew it would be hot and that fire danger was extreme, but we had the fire plan in order (kinda) and spent most of the day marvelling at the ludicrous heat. With the radio on 774 listening for any mention of f...
Read more