Mother Nature Vs Johnny Ray

We are off to Vanuatu next week…..we hope…..we plan to anyway……another tropical island in the warm and azure South Pacific…..but then here’s the story.  Like my previous post, Mother Nature has been busy this season whipping up lots of goodies in her kitchen.  Her specialty this time of year is cyclones.  It’s a bit like us humans when we cook soups in winter or roasts on Sunday, certain foods for certain occasions.  Well, Mother Nature cooks up cyclones in summer and she never disappoints.  This year however, she has been extra busy with the help of her Latina gal-pal, La Niña, creating extensive flooding throughout Australia as well as cyclones almost on a weekly occurrence, or even as extreme as now with three cyclones on the go at once!  So, please Mother Nature, I know you love whipping things up to show us all how magnificent and creative you are, but please don’t send any in Vanuatu’s direction.  They’re on a diet.

A sunburt country no more....

When it rains in New Zealand it really does a good job of it.  My last post, too long ago to be forgivable, I lamented the long dry spell which had been cast upon this alluring green landscape, threatening to turn all things brown and parched.  As nature would have it, not long after that it rained, and then soon after that again, and again and again and…..well you get the picture.  The total rainfall over the last few weeks is close to 300 mm of life giving precipitation thanks to a series of dying cyclones which have been carried south from the Coral Sea off Australia and tropical pacific regions to the north of New Zealand.  This pattern is set to continue, shaping the summer up to be one of the wettest on record for the North Island of the country.  Now that I have said all that, it won't rain again now………