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Had to kill an hour in Ballarat today so took the camera out. One thing I always love about Ballarat is that there’s such a thin layer of paint over the goldrush era – you don’t need to look hard at all to see cobblestone streets and buildings from the mid 1800’s.

I found a small laneway off the Bridge Mall that I’d never seen before. The walls are totally covered in murals painted by one of the art colleges in Ballarat – quality is a little suspect, but it’s still pretty neat.

A few other random shots that caught my eye…

Big Girl’s friend was staying with us for the day yesterday and we had a picnic dinner at Tullaroop Reservoir. I knew I’d be shooting in low light but couldn’t find the camera mounting plate for the tripod so I had to push the ISO and shoot handheld. Reasonably happy with some of the shots I got.

Yesterday was the start of school for the year and the first day of kinder. Big Girl is in grade 4 now, and little girl had her first day of 3YO kinder.

Today little girl made pancakes for breakfast.

And here’s a quick shot I took when we had our day at Ocean Grove a few weeks back. It’s a classic example of a well enjoyed ice-cream.

For those of you who don’t live down under, we’re having some seriously wet weather right now. Central Victoria has had a HUGE amount of rain during the second half of the year.

Our water catchments were looking pretty bare in the middle of the year, but right now, every catchment within a few hundred kilometres of where I live is pretty much full. Some have taken on so much water they’ve opened floodgates for the first time in a decade.

Melbourne’s catchments are over 50% full (current figure here), but that’s actually slightly skewed because the Thomson dam is still only at 35%, and it’s seriously, seriously huge (nearly 50,000 hectares, and 60% of the total catchment area).

We’ve had yet more rain today, and the saturated ground just can’t hold any more water. Any rain at all and we’ve got puddles everywhere.

The weather report for the next three days is looking pretty dire. The bureau have forecast somewhere between 50 and 150 millimetres of rain for most areas of the state and have a whole slew of warnings current. Those of us who are volunteers in the State Emergency Service are on high alert and ready to do whatever we need to to manage the floodwaters.

The radar isn’t looking too bad right now, but there’s more to come.

Anyone who does live in Victoria need to remember a few basic things:

• Don’t walk, swim or drive through floodwater. This is the single biggest cause of flood related deaths. Last floods (3 weeks ago) somewhere north of 30 cars were washed away in floodwater.
• Don’t shelter under trees. High winds and totally saturated ground means trees are falling over a lot, and you don’t really want to be under a gum tree when it topples over.
• There’s a bunch more information on the SES FloodSafe website.

If you do get in trouble, call 132 500 for emergency assistance.

I’ve been meaning to stop and shoot a wide landscape of this shed and orange farm trailer for a long, long time. On the way home yesterday the light was perfect.