The West Australian outback surprises me every time I visit. On my last stint in Southern Cross we sweltered through 4 days of temperatures well over 40 with increasing humidity. When the easterly blew it was straight out of the hot red centre, scalding your face and making your lungs labour. We didn't consume anything solid. The only source of relief and sustenance was through water, body temperature or cool and beer, definitely chilled.
Then one afternoon I spotted what looked like smoke on the horizon and a decidedly strong and gusty westerly took supremacy. As the dark cloud rose higher in the sky and continued to rapidly advance it begun to dawn on us that it was red. A great red wall of dust announcing the arrival of a cold front. I've never seen anything like it, as it drew closer it was like a solar eclipse. I lamented the loss of all that critical topsoil from the poor farmers but geez it was almost worth it.
When the cloud was finally upon us, the wind howling and the entire horizon dominated by a very post apocolyptic scene it was simply thrilling. The dust stung our eyes as we belatedly hurried back to the house to close windows and doors, and then the world was red. How I wish we'd had a decent camera between the lot of us because the hue that the red tint gave to everything was magical and poorly captured by our little quick shot digitals.
And the fun didn't stop there. I left Southern Cross and headed north a couple of hundred clicks just 2 days later. Clouds were skirting us all day, it was so hot and sticky, the exhaust from the booster truck blowing straight into me, we postulated that because the sun couldn't penetrate the surrounding areas due to cover it was taking out it's vengeance on our small patch. Or at least it bloody felt like it. Then mid afternoon some of the clouds that had ran south in the morning and grown dark and foreboding in the interim suddenly swung towards us again. I thought I could make out the grumblings of thunder over the air piercing noise of the drill rig but couldn't see any lightening. (Yes yes I know the rule, 'if you hear it, fear it, if you see it, flee it) We were stuck on a flat alluvial plain with a scattering of low mulga trees and salt bush. So the 20 foot steel drill rig mast was literally the highest point for a good few kilometres. But we thought nothing of it, the clouds had been messing with us all day. Evidently they weren't done because the cloud did advance, quite rapidly and when the gale force winds hit I knew then that I could hear thunder. As I thought it I saw the lightening too, and just for good measure checked that the radio station was indeed unrecognisable due to the static. Time to park it up boys. We pulled the mast down and scurried back to camp just as the first rain started pelting.
I love it when it rains out here. There's nothing petite or polite about it, there's no soft sighing of water gently touching the surface and soaking in. It sounds like an invading army, loud and unescapable. It soaks the surface and in a matter of minutes erodes the landscape creating new floodways and temporary rivers. It rips leaves from branches and sometimes branches from trees and destroys the workings of ground dwelling invertebrates. It's a glorious thing to witness. Rain is life and it bursts onto the scene proclaiming loudly, here I am! Take me if you can!
Little did we know those pesky clouds had more than mere rain in store for us. Back at camp the near horizontal deluge had passed and we were tidying up the mess when one of the boys says 'Hey did you hear that? Did something just fall off that caravan?' indicating one of the 4 caravans we were staying in. The 2 of us that heard shook our heads. 'Nah mate don't know what you're talking ab-' And he's cut off by the sound of something very solid and quite weighty hitting the roof of the caravan whose awning we're sitting under. We all pause and look at each other dumbfounded. That was no branch, and definitely not a honky nut, no marri trees out here. Then we hear it again and for the 4th time then finally it pings off the roof and onto the ground in front of us. I should have known that turquoise blue hue to the cloud was not a good thing because sitting on the ground in front in front of us now is a hail stone the size of my fist (for reference I do have small girly hands but my fist is still a considerable size). We look at each other, with 'What the?' and 'Holy shit!' expletives. Although obviously it is not sacramental faecal matter. Then from the hill behind us begins a very loud din, I can only describe it as what I imagine a vortex or tornado would sound like. A great whirring and crashing and we're all suddenly standing out in the open gawking. We're hit by a wave of vegetation fragments ripped from their hosts and then the hail came. Fast and hard, huge stones not nice and neatly rounded but knobbly and angular and frankly evil looking. We stood under that awning saying things of religious origin which did not even begin to describe the spectacle. In 5 minutes it was over and the ground was white with hail stones great and small. Rain followed and we were left gob smacked.
Now I'm not so crushed I missed the big hail storm in Perth, because out here it was a million times more exciting. Our boss who tried to visit us that day (without looking at the weather forecast mind you) now has a toyota prado that looks just like the great hail storm car wrecks! Brilliant!
P.s I promise to post the video that one of the offsiders took on his phone, if I ever manage to get it off him....
