Bad drivers

No more snow yet, but did have frozen dew on the lawn this morning.......

I couldn't open the car door because the rubber seal was frozen to the car frame. And no wiper water, cos it was also frozen in the tubes.

This blog is somewhat in response to Jad's comment about road conditions.

NSW roads are almost always in bad condition. For everyone in Western Australia, don't complain about the extra few cents you pay on fuel for road tax, it is very much worth it. The only good roads are the toll highways in Sydney, so you have to pay extra to use them anyway.

The speed limit on the road out to work is a 100km/h, but in WA it would probably be 80km/h. It's narrow, winding and potholed.

I have occasionally heard Perth drivers been accused of being bad, and having driven in Sydney I can understand why. In Sydney, there are so many cars, close together, going fast that you have to be continually alert, and take even the smallest opportunity to turn or change lanes. There is no margin of error.

In Perth, you have the luxury to hesitate, wait for a better opportunity and become rather lazy about driving.

But this also means that NSW drivers, especially Sydney drivers, are extremely bad country drivers. Driving too fast, or very close to cars in front, and overtaking dangerously.

And then you add ice.........

There are always a few bad accidents every winter. But there are also lots of accidents even on dry summer roads just from people being dickheads.

They don't salt the roads as they don't usually get too icy. I haven't experenced any icy roads yet *cross fingers*.

Snow

We had a snow fall last night!
Only a couple of centimetres, enough to thinly cover flat ground with tuffs of grass poking through.
It wasn't at home or work, unfortunately, but on the side of the road on the way to work.
The road gets to approx 1000m altitude before descending into the valley where the mine is situated.

Prediction is for more tomorrow morning. I will try to remember my camera!

My house

Thought I would show you some photos of where I've been living for the past 7 months.
It's a 4 bedroom place. Have one housemate at the moment, a vet grad, and she always has great work stories. Until recently also had a grad mining engineer, on exchange from my employer's western australian mine site.





























Lounge room at the front, front door to my left, hallway down to the bedrooms on right:















Kitchen (to the right of the dining room in above photo):















Living room / computer room:















Back patio:















But the best thing about the place (well, at the moment) is it has central gas heating!

Beauties and Beasts

Ok, I'll move on to something other than winging about the cold. It's actually not as bad as you would think. It's a novelty at the moment and all the buildings have very good heating. And I have discovered pure Merino wool thermal undergarments for when I do go outside, heavenly!
I will probably change my mind when it actually starts raining......

Went to a charity ball on Sat night. There was a great cover band, even though they didn't play anything from the 90's, let alone this decade. That's one of the things I miss in Orange - live music.
Mostly because there is relatively few people in their 20's in Orange. Teenagers finish high school, move to the big smoke for work or uni, and then come back when they are ready to have families.

You may or may not know, and you may or may not believe, that I now play a regular team sport - soccer! I am actually enjoying it, mostly due to it being C grade and most of the team members are from the mine.

These two subjects are related and in the same post due to these two photos:
On Saturday night - The Beauties




















On Sunday morning - The Beasts

Icy

Iciest morning yet. Stopped to take photos on the way to work:



















The fields are normally green, just not this morning. It's all white, well actually pink due to the sunrise.

See it IS cold!

Screen capture of the before mentioned weather webpage.
This is from last thurday (31st May), before it was offically winter.

Here is a photo of the work landcruser:















It is already a morning ritual to fill up a bottle with warm water to pour over the windscreen.