Sunday, March 2, 2014

1% Weight Loss Challenge - Week 8

I've been away for a couple of weeks presenting seminars in north-west Queensland where it's as dry as a bone.

Growing up in Whyalla I know what it's like living in a place where it's as dry as a bone. Since the year I was born it's averaged 10 inches or rain a year, pretty much spread out over the months. In autumn and winter it gets an inch or so a month from the south westerlies and in the summer months it gets cloud bursts fed by monsoonal rains from the Indian Ocean - though with an average of an inch a month all that Whyalla ever received was the very last few hairs of the tail of any monsoon.

The thing about Whyalla though is that there was never a drought, just a low rainfall and the local pastoralists knew that if they ran just one sheep per square mile they'd come out ahead.

On the other hand the average rainfall for Winton is around 18 inches; but here's the rub. It can vary from around 43 inches as it did in the year 2000, down to 2 inches, as it did in 2002 and down to virtually nothing in the last couple of years.

While I was away I cracked a tooth and by the time I got home I was pretty much laid up and exhausted. It took me a week to recover.

But, I've bounced back and am back in the training harness.

The stats don't look all that good and I've got some making up to do before I get back to you in a week's time.


In the  mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and spare a thought for emaciated sheep and cattle feeding off dirt and farmers at their wits end. It's a heart-breaking situation that lowering interest rates isn't going to fix.



John Miller