It’s been a wild and wacky week of weather here in Sydney. In the space of a week, we’ve seen storms and rain that moved entire beaches into car parks, felled countless trees, and ground the city to a halt. We then had a couple of beautiful days of sunshine, during which I cruised around the city with our friend Katie with the roof down on the convertible, before yesterday’s pièce de résistance, a surprise flurry of giant hailstones that blanketed the city, caused flash flooding, collapsed roofs and flooded cars and houses. We’re all feeling a tad shocked as we put the city back together and are wondering what’s next – a giant plague of man-eating locusts, perhaps?
All sounds very crazy, right? And not like anything anyone would put themselves through by their own will…..but it just struck me that these are the extremes of conditions the Kili 3 – my Mum, sister and nephew – can totally expect to experience within the space of a week during their August challenge. Well, I’m guessing they might not have a convertible car up there, but you get the gist… I did a little googling and discovered that the journey from the base of Kili to the top is the meteorological equivalent of travelling from the equator to Antarctica in just a few days. They could traverse through 27 degrees Celsius at the bottom all the way to -27 degrees at night at the top! How the hell do you prepare yourselves for that?!?
Back in Sydney, most of us have warm, dry houses to hide in, to protect us from wet, hail and sunburn. The Kili 3 will be trekking through the forces of Mother Nature, carrying all their necessities in daypacks and sleeping in tents overnight, sometimes surrounded by snow. Puts the challenge into perspective, doesn’t it?
