Fri 28 July - rain threat, Wests, Storm, Test, town walk, Sequoia, SWC Race-Off

Once again rain was threatening for the next couple of days, so we decided to stay in Gray, with Rita working on her thesis and me getting my weekly sporting fix. I started my day watching Wests get rolled by South Sydney 32-18, after never really being in the game. When Parramatta took an early lead in the later game against the Storm, I wondered if my day was going to go from bad to worse. But luckily, the Storm got their act together and ran out winners 46-16.

The NRL games finished in time for me to watch the second day of the 5th Ashes Test. It was a slow but solid day of test cricket, with Australia eventually grinding out a first innings lead of 12 runs by the close of play. It was a traditional day of test cricket, with nothing all that exciting (except Steve Smith's horizontal dive to avoid being run out), and just good background commentary to complement doing something else (like completing a few more days of words and pictures for this blog).

Towards the end of the day, Rita and I went for a walk around the town and, for the frst time, noticed a huge sequoia tree next to a building across the river from the boat. It must have been over 2 metres in diameter (judging from Rita's height as she stood in front of the tree on the photo at right), and about 25 metres tall. In talking to a resident in the buidling next to the tree, Rita found out that the tree was about 300 years old, from local historical records and photos. We often think of such trees as being slow-growing, because they are so old, but a few quick calculations in my head showed this not to be the case. A 2m diameter tree of 35m height that has grown for 300 years has a slightly higher annual growth rate than a 60cm diameter tree of 25 metres height grown over 25 years (which is typical of the eucalypts we are growing back home).

We slowly continued our walk around town and as we got back to the port-side of the river, the sun was setting behind the sequoia tree.

When we got back to the boat, I realised that tonight was the Race-Off meeting of the Speedway World Cup, where Australia was competing with three other teams for the final place in the Final which was being held over the weekend. After coming second by 1 point (42-41) to Denmark in the Second Semi-Final, this was their last chance to get into the Final. And did they ever perform, scoring 54 out of a possible maximum 60 points, to win the Playoff by 19 points from second placed Sweden. Now for the Final tomorrow night!