“It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. 
Don't concentrate on the finger 
or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
 Bruce Lee

“It’s 115 degrees in the Waterbag”, my dear old Dad was wont to proclaim on scorching hot days.  (115 being in degrees Fahrenheit)
We were travelling past Goschen after a week up at the family acres and suffering through a run of days above 40C. This morning it was already 44C and not even yet mid-morning. (And we had at least 4 hours of roadwork ahead of us).

To add to the difficulty there was a strong northerly wind blowing as well.   For the geographically and meteorologically challenged, that means the winds are carrying very hot air down from the interior of Australia and a quick look at your average Aussie map will show that there is a lot, mostly, of desert out there.  About 70% of the land mass is semi arid or arid.  That’s about 5.3 Million square kilometers.
And most of it was concentrating on Goschen.

To be honest, we should have just kept going, a nice cool drink and a pie at the Eaglehawk Bakery was our next stop.
But, well, you never know do you?

However after about 30 mins of blistering wind, little shade and myriad flies, it was time, as they say, to let discretion have the better of the moment, and we sat in the pathetic shade of the old—now badly deteriorating and neglected— Goschen Hall.  A quick cuppa, a snack, and, well, we’d be on the road.

Speaking of family, my Mum always used to say, “Nothing like a hot cup of tea on a wretched day.” And as the kettle was always on the stove, the teapot sitting on the side and plenty of rich sugar in the bowl, perhaps she was right about a hot, black, sugar rich  cuppa.   At least the time taken to sit, sip, enjoy, and talk about things did help to pass the time away.

We’d seen little of the bird life of the area that morning. Unlike a few days before when only time for other commitments dragged us on our journey.  More of that on another blog.

As we sat, a tiny blur of wings landed in a tree not far from us.

A Hooded Robin

We had seen in the past few days quite a number of both male and females in the area, so it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
But.
He was hot. Really hot. And wanted some relief.   This is Goschen. There is no permanent standing water.  There probably hadn’t been rain in at least the past 6-8 weeks at a guess.

So with the strong North Wind blowing, he found a shaded large limb to perch on, and then with wings wide spread he made the most of the breeze.  And he rode the breeze like a surfer on a board. Cooling one side then the other. So concentrating on his attempt at getting cool, he didn’t seem to fussed by our close approach.

For the next five minutes or so he made the most of cooling off as best possible.

And we left him to it and headed back for our hot drive to Eaglehawk.

Enjoy.  He certainly did.