For all readers and fellow bloggers in the northern hemisphere, I bring you a little light relief. Just something to remind you that your snow and ice storms will come to an end… summer will return, I guarantee it!
Some thoughts and images to warm you up today…
Here in Perth, Western Australia, we are having a heatwave. Just a short one, 3 days. Yesterday was pretty warm, today’s temp is forecast to be 44. Slightly cooler tomorrow. 
I probably don’t need to explain that’s C, not F.
Morning coffee on the balcony is pleasant; I still have shade. The heat is dry, much more comfortable than humidity… My favourite spot for breakfast, morning coffee, an evening wine… and writing. 
I can hear the neighbours already cooling off…
Meanwhile, Saturday morning skydiving is popular, tourists enjoy an air-conditioned cruise up the river towards the Swan Valley wineries… and jetskis race each other on the water… 
Meanwhile… the heat usually brings out some of the worst people. One minute Perth is lazing under a hot sun… 
and the next minute King Park is on fire.
Most of our summer fires are deliberately lit. People have lost their homes and died through the actions of lunatics such as this. I hope they are caught quickly. Thankfully this fire was all extinguished 2 hours later.
The news helicopters get in close… 
By now the beaches will be filling up. The afternoon sea breeze is not even in yet… the afternoon is getting hotter.
Au revoir mes amis, time for a swim myself! 🙂
Cupcake Canada is 5,000 km. from Vancouver British Columbia to Halifax, Nova Scotia on the east coast. That distance would be greater if you start the journey 400 km. north of Vancouver and go east…but the problem with that route is choice of roads peeters out. We do have a lot of wilderness, 4 mountain ranges to cross in British Columbia and Alberta, then there’s simply bog/swamp land with a ton of lakes, rivers in northern prairie provinces, Ontario, etc.
The Arctic is viewed as tundra desert…there is plant life in summer but hardly any trees up there and one can’t have a garden in the normal sense of the word because of much shorter growing season.
My partner has cycled twice solo across Canada…4,300 km. from Vancouver to Toronto. So route planning is challenge in various provinces because of lack of choice for cycleable highways/roads with loaded panniers.
Canada has only 1 transcontinental passenger train that runs from west to east. People drive incredible disances only for vacationing purposes.. most of the time it is by air, bus. I suspect Canadians are like Aussies, we consider driving up to 200 km. in 1 day not unusual, whereas in Europe that is not the norm because of their terrific train systems.
Wow, that is an amazing distance for your partner to have cycled!! I’m in awe! 😀
Yes, driving 200km is almost nothing to us. Eg Perth is around 300km from Margaret River (fantastic wine region)… TC and I have been known to drive there for morning wine tasting, lunch in a restaurant, then return, all for a Saturday out!
Yea, you are a bit crazy for a one-day wine tasting, etc. on Sat. He actually has a mild case of narcolepsy, falling asleep when his body is still and he’s doing nothing else (computer work doesn’t count). So he can only drive for 100 km. and then must rest for half an hr. Otherwise he falls asleep at the steering wheel. So another reason why we don’t have a car.
That is hot! I’ve only experienced summer highs up to 36 degrees C: in Canada’s desert. We do have one in the interior British Columbia which is the same area as the province’s wine-growing region.
Do Aussies travel much across their own country from coast to coast through the centre of your country? And I don’t mean flying by air. It looks intimidating to me…Canada has its own geographic challenges.
Hi Jean, yes we do travel across the interior – there are very good highways on the main routes, but not lots of ‘criss-crossing’ roads like you would find in, say, UK or Europe. I have no idea what Canada is like to compare.. but basically, if you look at the map of Australia, we drive across the bottom (Perth to Melbourrne) on good highways, along with most of the coastal areas, plus there are some good highways that go up/down through the middle. Some people do drive, but not as many as you would think. TC and I have done the drive twice, as a child, my family did it quite a few times.
To put in into perspective though, if you drive 12-14hrs per day, stop overnight (eg in a motel) then it will take 3 full days to drive from Perth to Melbourne. From Perth, it takes us 14 hrs driving on the major highway to get to our state border. That’s driving at 120km/h, which (shhhh) is slightly over the speed limit! 😀
To get to Uluru, Alice Springs or other places in “the centre” you have to basically drive up from the south coast, or down from the north (Darwin). We’ve done that drive too, and cycled all around Uluru (formerly called Ayers Rock). Spectacular!!
This country is a huge desert though. Once you turn north from that south coast, it’s ALL dry, flat, barren land. Quite amazing to drive through.
I have a friend who just returned from Australia and she was saying how hot it was there. She sure got a nasty surprise!! Lucky you to have that vew, btw.
According to the news tonight, WA (Western Australia) was the hottest place on the planet today! Yes, our view is amazing… we sacrificed space, it’s a VERY small apartment 🙂
I would have sacrificed space too 🙂
We’re having a heat wave as well. It’s supposed to hit 35 degrees F (1 C) today. It sounds chilly, but it’s lovely after having -30 C temps in Minnesota! I envy your wonderful breakfast view, though!
Glad you hear you are warming up a little! Yes it it a great breakfast view… not sure how I’ll shape up for breakfast tomorrow as our minimum overnight will only drop to 28C… which means its very hard to get any sleep! And reminds us we really need to sort out a cooling solution up in the bedroom!
What you get, Adelaide gets a couple of days later… There’s a heat wave happening over here too! The next 5 days will be at least 40 degrees, then the temp drops just in time for the Tour Down Under, thank goodness!
Yes, it’s definitely coming your way!