Bushfire at Warrumbungle National Park

Over the last couple of days a terrible, horrific bushfire has impacted on the Warrumbungle National Park, Siding Springs Observatory, 33 homes and numerous rural buildings near Coonabarabran in New South Wales, Australia. The bushfire is believed to have burnt out some 500 000 hectares and now has a fire front of over 100km in length.

Obviously the fire is a terrible tragedy for the people living in the region, as well as the natural wonder that is the Warrumbungle National Park. This fire was started by lightning strikes in a major heatwave currently being experienced in Australia. The tinder dry conditions and gale force hot winds have fanned the blaze and even now as I write, the bushfire is again threatening homes in the region and is expected to burn for weeks. 

The Warrumbungle National Park is one of my favourite places in Australia and I have visited the region many times. It is a sad and tragic disaster in more ways than one. 

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Pain

I don’t know what it is about work and I, but I always seem to find some way to injure myself – pretty much on a daily basis. I don’t believe it is about being careless, as I generally attempt to do things carefully and with awareness of occupational health and safety. However, I seem to always find a way of injurying myself.

At the moment I find myself in a fair amount of pain from a knee injury. How did I do it? I was getting into a golf buggy (we use these to get around the work site) and managed to collect my knee on a section of the buggy that juts into the passenger/driver space. It’s a very pointed section of the vehicle (extremely poorly designed actually and I’m not the only one who keeps hitting this spot) and I hit it fair in the middle of my knee with some force. The immediate pain was terrible and the the bruising appeared immediately. I couldn’t walk straight away (and being a fella I attempted to walk it out as we do), but eventually was able to do without pain – though the knee area was quite painful to touch.

Now being home from work, it’s getting late into the night and also quite cold (winter here) the pain has returned, its stiffened up quite a bit and walking has become an issue. I can’t wait for tomorrow morning when I try to get out of bed. Two days until holidays – keep telling myself that and I may be able to drag myself to work.