A country of extremes

Last week we woke up to the wildest thing we have ever seen. The biggest dust storm Sydney has seen since the 1940s, shrouding the city in a choking powder and forcing flight diversions and delays. Air pollution readings for the region were the highest ever recorded. The storm was more than 500 kilometers wide and 1,000 kilometers long and blew about 75,000 metric tons of dust an hour over the city.
The city literally glowed red. It made for a nasty walk to work, that's for sure. While it wasn't pleasant, and we are still cleaning up after it... I'll admit that it was truly a sight to behold. A few days later, we drove to Canberra for Floriade, which is the annual flower festival, held in the ACT. It felt like we had arrived in a different world. While we have been enjoying very warm weather in Sydney, in Canberra it still felt like winter. We "rugged up" as the Aussies say and spent a chilly day photographing a couple million flowers. While we had a good time and the festival was beautiful, we couldn't resist the temptation to drive a few hours further south the next day. We had heard that the Snowy Mountains were experiencing a last season snow storm, and since we hadn't been to the mountains yet, we thought it would be the perfect time to go.
Wow, it is ever beautiful down there. For hours you drive through rolling fields dotted with sheep. Then the landscape changes... there are rocks scattered everywhere, like giant jelly beans. You start to see pine trees and the outline of the mountains rise in the distance. Then suddenly, there they are. No alps, by any means... but mountains still. Mt Kosciuszko, the highest peak in Australia, was covered in blowing snow, and a few die hard skiers were still on the slopes. It was freezing cold and super windy. But beautiful and truly a sight to see. Arriving in the National Park, we were told that we couldn't drive any further unless we fitted chains on our tires. Who knew? So we picnicked beside the Snowy River instead, and then wound our way home.
Australia truly is a strange, beautiful and extreme country. I am so glad we have these chances to see it and all it's beauty.