THE tucker box is full, several chickens and a leg of lamb are frozen solid and packed in the Esky, sleeping bags are clean, the gas bottle full and the Bunyipmobile sits in the driveway with rod holder strapped to the pack rack. And unfortunately that is where it is going to stay. Once again, this global warming business is playing havoc with a weary angler’s ambitions to get away from it all, this season’s tally standing at two trips cancelled before they could begin and one aborted after a soggy, leech-plagued sojourn in a forest wetter even than Malcolm Turnbull.
It is very annoying, and someone should be made to pay for raising so many false expectations. As the Flanneries pelt down and all thought of getting away evaporates, this prediction in particular gets a Bunyip’s goat:
Victoria is likely to come under the influence of another El Nino within the next three years, exacerbating the drought and the likelihood of bushfires, a senior Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist says. David Jones, the head of the bureau's National Climate Centre, said there was some risk of a worsening El Nino event this year, but it was more likely to arrive in 2010 or 2011. – Adam Morton of The Age reports the settled science in February, 2009
If there is any satisfaction to be drawn from this moment of contemplating frustrated travel plans it is this: when the next drought comes, the Age will no longer be around to witness it.
