But Shepparton's putting up a good fight. The cute little towns along the outer edge of Melbourne which they're looking at are, for all their charms, little towns compared to
Shepparton, the closest thing to a city in these parts. As I noted a while back, it's quite an international place, too.Tonight was the Twilight Festival, a lovely outdoor festival with booths selling not just the inevitable sausages and beer but local wines, home-made Turkish food, Congolese hair-braiding... An Australian approximation of the Gypsy Kings played (well) until the fireworks, which were splendid! Either fireworks have gotten a lot cheaper or a lot better since I was young, or the sponsor of the fireworks, SPC Ardmona, the company which harvests and cans most of the fruit around here, splashed out a lot of money.
And then we headed home to find the sky full to bursting with the Milky Way. Not that you can't see the southern Milky Way anywhere in Australia, indeed anywhere in the world. But I don't think I've ever seen it this bright before. Gotta get out into the bush and sleep under the stars before I leave Australia...
(The pic is from the web, taken in Bolivia by a Fred Espenak.)
