Dry as …

The drive from home in Victoria’s Goldfields to Byron Bay and back took us through the most seriously drought affected regions of south-east Australia. Ironically, whilst on our journey the first rains in a very long time reached much of the affected area. There is something inauthentic about photographing parched country under black rain clouds. On the return journey the sun came out for a while.

The dry July has exacerbated rainfall deficiencies already being seen over much of the southeast of the mainland … deficiencies have increased in severity and spread through most of New South Wales and northern Victoria (apart from the far southeast corner near the border), southern Queensland, the eastern half of South Australia in the Agricultural and east Pastoral regions and in the southwest coast of Western Australia.          Bureau of Meteorology.

Not a lot of feed for the cattle but they are nonetheless in good shape. Testament to the hard work put in by the farmers. Same goes for the sheep …

We saw plenty of trucks loaded with hay rolling in and some loaded with stock rolling out.

Both those shots are from northern NSW. Further south we got talking to a sheep/wheat farmer. This time last year there were heads on the wheat. This year the wheat is barely a third of the height. He’d also planted a paddock with oats as a fodder crop. It has no chance of reaching a height at which he could cut it. He’s turned the sheep on it to reduce the work load of hand feeding. Fortunately he doesn’t have to cart water because he has a bore on his property. He was cheerful. He’d done quite well last year and the occasional drought is a fact of life.

He’d had a heart attack and triple bypass last year. He was cheerful about that as well. The air ambulance ride to Sydney was his first time on a plane.

They’re as tough as nails out here.