Let's not kid ourselves: the heat waves wreck us all. I did another guiding shift on Saturday - numbers in the Village Centre were down by about two-thirds, and most people who made it through the fearfully hot car-park were content to crash out with a drink for hours.
I posted times for two tours before anybody took interest - not a big deal as long as I have a book, a chair, and a timer on to remind me to go and take the next tour. During the afternoon I still got to take three tiny tour groups around the centre. I even got to practise a highly personalised tour with one group of one very polite lady - so polite that I thought that she might be a plant who was just pitying/humouring me. Bless her heart.
We all observed that a lot of the forests are under stress at the moment, at the peak of summer.
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| The Buchan Blue looks... well, dead |
The heat is getting to every forest and every visitor: at 3:05 pm a very well-dressed older lady asked how on earth she was going to get out to the Margaret Whitlam Pavilion for a 3:00 wedding. When I pointed to the pavilion, and said that the only way out there is to walk, well, there was drama.
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| It's a long walk, and she's already had to walk all the way in from the car park, and it's a terrible day, and she has high blood pressure, and it's already started, and we should have a vehicle for times like this... |
Ignoring that she and her carpool had arrived late all on their own, an old memory burped its way into the conversation about somebody sometime planning to buy a golf cart to assist guests when needed. I went to seek it, but it turned out to be a myth. The shop dude talked them through driving out there and parking in the one disabled bay that is reserved out at the pavilion, and they got to it.
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| Hot days do at least make sense of the cactus patch |
I broke spells outside (in the shade, even) with some spells under the air-conditioning outlet and getting some photos of the forests in the heat.
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| The Camden White Gum has had better summers |
Still a great afternoon!
