I posted this over on the DAZ site earlier :~

O.k. so here's a little blog of sorts.....

I'm in Victoria, and let me tell you we're all shellshocked down here. I live in the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne (at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, which themselves have been ravaged by fire in the past, but not this time around thank God). I'm also on the edge of the Yarra Valley which is one of the major winery areas in Australia, and the 'gateway' to the worse-affected regions.

While we were never in any immediate danger where we are, you could smell the smoke all weekend and last night the sky was an unbelievable shade of all kinds of pink above us (with the clouds reflecting both the fires and the setting sun). We couldn't tell though, if the smoke was coming from the north (Kinglake) or from the south (Gippsland fires).

The nearest fire to us would have been the the Kinglake one. Kinglake is several kms away from us by road, but closer as the crow flies. If you stand outside in the street in front of our house you can see the Kinglake National Park (mountain range) to the north of us on the horizon. (The closest the fire actually would have got to us was still several kilometres away. It reached the outskirts of a town called Yarra Glen which is about a 20 minute drive from where I am). So, like I said, no immediate danger for us, but that's about as close as I ever want to come, that's for sure.

I'm very familiar with the towns that have been wiped out, as I've visited them several times. (Towns like Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong and Buxton are all within around an hour's drive to where I live). These are (or were) situated in beautiful rugged country, heavily forested with magnificent scenery, but are all quite remote, so it's not hard to understand why these were so vulnerable to the fires. These are all places (particularly Marysville) that I love and have spent a lot of time in over the years, so if it's possible to mourn the loss of a place, then that's what I feel like I'm exsperiencing a the moment.....I just cannot believe that beautiful little town has gone.

To give you an idea, this is what it used to look like:~

http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/marysville/photos/

And now there is NOTHING left. And so many people have died up there....it's just mind-numbing........

These are all places that are some distance from larger towns (not to mention the city of Melbourne itself) and so were popular with hobby farmers, weekenders and day-trippers, and of course the hundreds of permanent residents who lived there as well. These were very vibrant communities. I last visited Marysville a few months ago, and sat outside the bakery with a coffee and cake. From out of nowhere, this beautiful (lorikeet) parrot flew in, landed right on my plate, and then started to chow-down on my food, lol. It then flew off again without so much as a 'thank you'. I read a lot of unbelievable things in the paper this morning, but one thing has stayed with me and that is how someone described the birds being blown out of the sky by the fire.....I can't even begin to comprehend that.

The scope of all the death and devastation from these fires is mind-numbing. I don't know (or know of) anyone myself who has died or lost their home and all they have, but the size of it is so massive I have a feeling it will become one of those events where everyone will 'know someone, who knows someone'.... I'm finding I'm crying at the drop of a hat and that's quite weird, because as I said, we were completely untouched and I don't know of anyone personally who has perished or has lost anything....but I feel that (as a lot of other people, I'm sure) there's such a sense of loss that's so all-encompassing it's just...well, it's just indescribable and your heart just goes out to those people who have lost husbands, wives, children, parents....like I keep saying, the scale of this thing is mind-blowing.....it's incomprehensible.

There is one positive thing. SO many people have been volunteering to help and the relief centres and places where you make donations in the way of goods (clothing, etc.) are being overwhelmed by gifts. I'm not in a position to donate a lot of material stuff (or money) so I thought I'd do the next best thing, and donate blood. (It was initially suggested that this would be needed to, for burns victims in the hospitals etc.) Well....now they're saying that the Blood Bank have been so overwhelmed by offers they don't need any of that either. And THAT'S an amazing thing in itself.....