NYE 2009
Last New Year's Eve, it was a stinking hot day in Tasmania - 40 degrees centigrade. Luckily, my plans for the night involved staying with a group of some of my oldest friends at a beachside shack that belongs to the family of one of them.

We drove over in the afternoon, unpacked our gear and jumped in the water. Come dinnertime, we barbequed up a variety of different meats - lamb, chicken, kangaroo, etc - and mixed up frozen cocktails to stave off the heat. As we were finishing our food, a gigantic storm started to move down the other side of the river. It must have been absolutely pissing it down over there, but where we were it stayed dry and warm while we watched the show:






(click for bigger)

This went on for about 45 minutes, with huge bolts of lightning going off constantly. I absolutely love thunderstorms, and this was one of the best I've seen. Once it cleared up, we walked down to the nearby jetty, where the local council was putting on a midnight fireworks show (impressive, but... a bit anticlimactic after the sheer ferocity of the storm), before returning to the beach to cap the night off with a drunken 2am swim, since despite the earlier storm it was still about 30 degrees in the water. I couldn't really have asked for a better way to usher in the new year. Everything was perfect - the weather, the company, the food, the drinks, and the light shows, both natural and manmade. Best NYE ever.
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 4:25, 6 replies)

cool
I was in St Helens at the same time
(augsav forgot about B3ta, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 5:20, closed)

Bah, you join some website that is located on the otherside of the world and what do you get, Tasmanians all enjoying it splendour! I went on a boat ride in Viet Nam last month with only 7 visitors and 3 of us were Tasmanian. We are truly awesome people - about as awesome as that storm was in Hobart. Thanks for the photos.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Fri 6 Aug 2010, 9:02, closed)

Yeah it's ridiculous
Odds are I probably know someone you do, as well. Tassie's that kind of place. I once struck up a conversation with a woman on top of Cradle Mountain and it turned out I'd gone to uni with her daughter.
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Mon 9 Aug 2010, 1:55, closed)

ta da!
woo. another tasmanian here, currently in north queensland though. There's no winter here!
(unoriginal spluffed so hard it came out her nose on, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 0:02, closed)

OH GOD THEY'RE COMING OUT OF THE WALLS

(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Tue 10 Aug 2010, 6:47, closed)

I shall worry now about future posts. If you are the subject of one them, I apologise in advance. What goes on in B3ta will stay in B3ta!
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Wed 11 Aug 2010, 4:01, closed)