I have
fond memories of the brilliantly clear and bright night skies of the Western
Australian deserts of my childhood holidays,
My family (parents and the four of
us kids) would load up the family car and a small trailer with all the paraphernalia
required to go “car camping” out in the desert for a couple of weeks at a time
during the August school, holidays. The days were hot and dusty as we drove
from mining town to roadhouse and all places in between. We would find some
deserted stretch of a little used road in the “station country where fences are
a rarity and we would just drive off the road by a hundred meters or so, in
amongst a few gum trees for shade and set up camp. It might just be for the
night or it might be for a few days while we explored the area with day-trips.
The earth was red and sandy, the spinifex grass was spiny, the days were hot
and the nights were cold and clear. The food was all a bit smoky and the wood
we collected for the nightly camp fire was all so incredibly dry and burned so
well.
And I
recall the skies were incredible… so many stars and so bright,,, The milky-way
draped like a huge sparkling blanket overhead to stare at for hours.
Good memories
indeed!
And then
at some point I moved from the small country towns were we lived into the city
to go to university… and the sky is never so impressive in the city with all
its light pollution and other distractions. And after that, I moved to other
Australian cities to work for a few years but it’s the same as far as the skies
are concerned. And then as happenstance would have it I moved to Canada and
have lived and worked there for the past twenty years… And there, even when I
did get out of the city and away from all the bright man-made lights, I have to
confess that the Northern sky is not as impressive at night as it is in the
Antipodes…just the luck of the draw there though.
And on
the occasions when I have ventured back to the southern hemisphere Ive rarely
spent long looking at the night sky and even when I have, it hasn’t really been
“an experience of note” so to speak.
And so we
come to the present… And Im riding through southern Africa and camping in
desert country almost every night and Ive had ample opportunity to stare for as
long as I want at the southern night sky…
And sad
to say, but that sky has faded… And Im sure of it… Its not as bright as it was!
Now of
course, there are probably a billion or two more people in the world since when
I was a kid, and no doubt we humans are kicking up lots more dust and creating
lots more air pollution than we were in the seventies and eighties but I think
that accounts for only a tiny fraction of the “fade”.
And I don’t
think it’s a case of overly exaggerated childhood memories either since I was
about 17 years old when I last went on one of those camping holidays with the
family.
No, I think
the cause of the change is far more mundane than that… I think my eyesight is
on the wane… The stars are doing fine, its me that’s fading!
Not much
to be don about it, just another reminder that everything is temporary and to
try not to take the joys that we currently have for granted… and to cherish
those golden memories of course …
Thanks Mum and Dad J
