Four Seasons in One Day

To be fair, we had been well-warned of the temperamental nature of Melbourne’s weather. The joke amongst locals – and others in the know – is that only in this city can you experience all four seasons in the span of a day.

You can rise to find a spring morning, flowers waking up and shaking off the fine layer of dew that can settle overnight. An hour passes and the wind can pick up and suddenly it’s autumn and the leaves are falling, spinning all around you. Around noon the sun can be so hot and the beaches so full of brown bodies and it becomes summer, the best summer you’ve ever tasted. But bring a jumper (a sweater) to dinner because as soon as night falls, the air can turn crisp and cold and wintry.

The weather is not always unpredictable; some days a warm summer breeze embraces you and carries you through morning, noon, and night. Nevertheless, it is always good to come prepared.

Though I don’t think even the locals could have predicted the weather last weekend, as thousands flocked to the city for the yearly Moomba Festival.

Curtis, James, Nicola and I arrived in the CBD and headed in the direction of the festival to meet up with Becky, Dave and Hinnerk. Along the way we passed this little guy grooving to Michael Jackson hits. I’d say he was earning a fair bit more than his weekly allowance.

The breeze was warm, the clouds were spaced out in the light blue sky, and bubbles from a nearby bubble-maker floated in the air. It was a totally normal summer’s day.

But in a matter of minutes, clouds began racing over from the horizon, and the skies grew dark and ominously green.

Noon looked like night and the lights from the train station across the river illuminated in reaction to the sudden change in the day’s brightness. And then a wall of rain began to fall. Except it wasn’t rain. It was loud, golf-ball sized hail. And OUCH it hurt when it came barreling down on my head.

We ducked for cover under patio umbrellas, but the hail chased after us, falling not only from the sky but also horizontally, like little baseballs batted by the howling winds.

Before too long you couldn’t see over the Yarra River. You couldn’t even see fifteen feet in front of you.

The sidewalks looked like small lakes.

And groups of BMX bikers, having realized that their festival competition was most certainly over for the day, headed back from the carnival grounds, wet and disappointed.

Look at the size of this hail!

We finally met up with the others and took refuge in a nearby Irish Pub. Here’s Hinnerk. He got a bit stranded and had to wade through the lake/sidewalk to get to us. Anything for a pint, right?

After we emerged from P.J. O’Brien’s a few couple hours later, even the underpasses were flooded.

On the roads, cars were at a standstill, and this driver decided he had better find a way to pass the time.

And then, out of nowhere, the skies cleared and the sun streamed in from every corner of the sky. Crazy, wild Melbourne weather!

Just kidding – that’s L.A. It was fairly miserable all day and the trams weren’t running (because of the traffic) so we swam all the way home to St Kilda through river-like sidewalks.

Ok, we walked. But still.

Lots of love,

the traveling stahr…