Friday 1 July 2022 Coomalie
There has been a great deal of action around the Farm this week, with about 90 young army and air force cadets here on a training camp.
It was hilarious on the first day when a small group of cadets were trying to hide in the long grass opposite Coomalie Central. Unfortunately, the dogs were on patrol as well and they raced over in full bark, giving away their position to the approaching ‘enemy’. It was very hot that day as well , so I imagine that patrolling and undergoing training exercises must have been challenging enough without our dear dogs joining in.
Last night, we had unseasonal cold and wet weather, which must have been most uncomfortable for our friends scattered around the place in tents. As I am writing this, the buses are just pulling in to take them all back up to Darwin. I can hear the kids cheering and singing. They sound so happy and full of the fun of life. They must have enjoyed their week here, challenges and all.
On Wednesday they had to deal with smoke from fires which had been suspiciously lit up near Lake Bennett the night before.
I was here alone. James and Norm were over at the Men’s Shed and Denise was out at her dancing group. Richard had taken Jaap up to Darwin the night before to catch his flight back home to Brisbane. During the late morning I could hear a helicopter circling overhead. That is not so unusual, however when it came in to land, and was soon followed by a Grader and a Ute with red and blue flashing lights I took more notice.
When the grader disappeared towards the cricket pitch in clouds of dust as it progressed, I decided to ring the boys. They came straight home followed later by Richard. The fires from Lake Bennett were being blown towards Coomalie and the very efficient local fire units were setting up back burns here.
During the afternoon the sound of crackling fire intensified and the smoke billowed up into huge black and white clouds. Apparently it it the detested introduced Gamba grass that burns so intensely and creates the black smoke.
ON THE ROAD 