Saturday 24 March 2007

Two Wells, the country bus & the Milky Way

We’ve been out at Steve’s folks house since Tuesday, in a place called Two Wells, which is a small country town literally named after…two wells;) There’s a very small main street, and the ‘country bus’ line to Adelaide stops outside the Post Office three times a day to go into the city. We’re not any farther out of the city than where my mom lives…in fact we’re probably closer to Adelaide than she is to Chicago, yet the difference is vast. I still think Australia is very similar to the US as far as initial impressions/looks go, but it is definitely much more sparsely populated. That’s a necessary, it seems, as far as water is concerned, though. Many people here have tanks outside which catch the run off from the rain, as they’ve been in a drought for years. Showers have to be quicker and watering the lawn is a definite no. I’m not sure how people manage to have a grass lawn and keep it looking anywhere near decent.

Went into the city yesterday to register with employment agencies and open a bank account. Hopefully there’ll be work by sometime next week. In the meantime, just exploring things are being amazed by the differences, such as the stars. It took me by surprise that what I thought were thin clouds in the midst of the stars was actually…the Milky Way, visible to the naked eye!

2 comments:

steveg said...

Hiya Susan

Wonderful to see pictures of OZ nad hear what you have to say about the place.

I rather suspect that the way they keep lawns green is on of 3 ways - or even a combination of all 3.

1) Use bath and washing up water for the lawn - the saop will not bother the grass as such

2) Rainwater from a water butt - as you described

3) Illicit late night watering when no one is looking

Steve may be able to confirm any/all of this

Give him my regards by the way

Steve

Suzer said...

Yep, I think they do use all of those ways...I couldn't be bothered...I just say put rocks in the front lawn!