Annie Dear: At least it’s not Nullarbor dry – yet

Desiccated enough, are we?

I think we all need to get outside to wash our cars, wash the windows and hang laundry – anything it takes to get it to rain. Organize a picnic for a couple of thousand, arrange for an outdoor wedding – come on people, work with me.

You all know how I’m not the hugest fan of summer in Kansas City, and quite frankly this month I rest my case, m’lud. It’s awful, it’s too hot, my July grass has taken on that delightfully crispy late August appearance, and there is no end in sight.

There are even murmurings of water restrictions.

Being a born and bred Aussie, this holds no mystique to me growing up as I did on the driest continent on earth. It’s not something to look forward to – water restrictions that is, not growing up in Australia, but trust me, it is doable.

I remember vividly going through years – yes, years, dear reader, of water restrictions. The lesson learnt lasts too.

Ever since I’ve been here, for example, I always as a matter of habit turn the faucet off when I brush my teeth. Sir – my darling Kansas City born and bred hubby – rather pish-toshes at this, and thence proceeds to shave all the while running hot water on the can of shaving cream lying in the sink with a plug nowhere in sight.

Water shortages in Sydney have in the past become so serious – deadly serious – that not only were you not allowed to water your garden unless it was with a hand-held hose, and only between the hours of approximately 6 a.m. to 6:05 a.m. or thereabouts it seemed, but car washing had to be accomplished by bucket alone.

Things got so dire that people resorted to standing in a baby bathtub in the shower, so the water could be collected to be used on the garden later.

Sydney’s water comes from the wonderfully named Warragamba Dam, which is all quite lovely, except the dam is actually not built where the rain falls the most. Call it Pippi Longstocking hopeful 1940s engineering, the dam just isn’t in the right spot. In 2003, the water dropped to a horrifying 30 percent capacity, and it was during this time a de-salinization plant was built on the Pacific Coast.

At least the Australian government was trying to be proactive and, despite protests from all manner of environmentally principled fish huggers, the building went ahead.

Now, of course, the dam is at 98 percent capacity and there is concern the thing is going to overflow, leaving the fish huggers pish-toshing at the creation of the salt extraction plant, not taking into account that it doesn’t take a whole lot of no rain for the levels to drop.

Americans often ask me why Australia – as big as the continental U.S. – has such a small population, a mere 22.5 million to our nigh on 314 million.

No water, dears.

We’re about to head out to Palm Desert, Calif., to visit with our darling Boston L’il, and Americans cannot grasp why we Aussies just can’t irrigate and create a Palm Desert or a Vegas in the middle of Oz.

No water, dears.

There is a famous road in Australia called the Birdsville Track, running about 320 miles through the Simpson Desert, and is one track that has claimed its fair share of the 40 deaths a year occurring in the Australian Outback.

The road may only be a mere 320 miles – just a wee bit longer than the trip from Kansas City to Cedar Rapids, Iowa – but with a miniscule population along the way, you won’t find gas stations, restaurants, rest stops – or water.

There’s an area in western Australia which is just as arid. The Nullarbor Plain stretches about 750 miles, holds the world record for the longest piece of straight road, and has an average annual rainfall of 7.8 inches – see, we get back to “no water, dears” again. Nowadays it’s all quite civilized and boasts a roadhouse every 125 miles or so, but back in the mid-1800s it was described as “a hideous anomaly, a blot on the face of Nature, the sort of place one gets into in bad dreams.” The speaker, one Edward John Eyre, proceeded across it anyway.

There is a roadhouse at Nundroo that boasts the last mechanical repair shop for 620 miles. Just imagine that, traveling from here to Boulder, Colo., without a hope of a mechanic. Not only no mechanic, but no tree, no hill, no water and the straightest road in the world stretching ad infinitum before you. Amazing, isn’t it?

And – just because I think it is a fabulous piece of trivia just shrieking to be shared, Nullarbor is not an Aboriginal term – it’s Latin meaning “no trees.” Well, no kidding.

So, despair not dear reader. If we do have to suffer water restrictions, it’s not the end of the world.

And just think, we can always blame someone else. The cold northerly winds just haven’t cooperated and haven’t come sweeping majestically across the Plains to mingle with the hot humid air coming up from the Gulf, now have they?

Blame Canada!