carolinephillips

Yes- I know, but there is no harm in wishful thinking!

Kooky.

Ah well, perfect excuse to stay inside doing nothing (Apart from digging out my swimmers for Bali...)

carolinephillips

I'm jealous now!

Kooky.

Well I'm doing a 7 day detox and will be living it up on my birthday with a coconut juice, so don't feel too jealous

(You can be jealous of the private villa though, if you like. Nobody said detoxing can't be done in luxury...)

carolinephillips

Happy birthday- enjoy the coconuts!!!

ozzieeagle

Yes the further *North you go the more even the Daylight v Dark hours.... Hence Hobart, out of all the Capital Cities has the most daylight hours in the Summer and the least in the Winter.... Whereas Darwin/Cairns etc virtually stays the same all year. Those UK summer daylight hours is definitely one of the biggest things I miss living here... I love going to the UK or NHempisphere in June..... I reckon its probably one of the main things that people dont realise they are giving up.

Edit * Closer to the Equator that is.

Kooky.

I too love light nights. I went to Amsterdam last year with an Australian colleague and they blew her mind (the light nights, not the coffee shops).

Having lived on the equator where it gets light at 7 and dark at 7 ish every single day, I can tell you any variation is most welcome but it doesn't exactly change my life.

ProudVIC

Sunset gets as late as around 8:45pm in Melbourne near the solstice (with DS time), and around the same in Hobart believe it or not (just 5 or 10 minutes later). Sunrise is around 30 minutes earlier in Hobart though at the same time.

Some people posting are exaggerating the harshness of summers down here.

The summer heat and dry in places like Victoria and the SE generally is not as bad as Spain for example yet the English seem to love the climate down there probably even more than Australia.

A place like Madrid averages 31C for maximums in July which is equal or near equal to the hottest place in Victoria. Melbourne on the other hand only averages around 26C and many coastal and mountain areas only average 20C-25C in January.

Go to a place like Seville and it is as hot as the centre of AUS during summer with a 35C average July maximum, and record temps of near 47C, similar to Melbourne's record. One thing about Melbourne is you don't take siestas in the middle of the day as part of the culture. It's not that hot really. Melbourne, Victoria and much of the SE of the continent gets amazing extremes of heat and low humidity on the occasional days in summer and also impressive extended heatwaves sometimes, you have to realise though that this is only on occasions and not what it is like most of the time. Also summers are quite dry down south, the flip side of this is that winters and springs are quite wet.

Nowhere in the world is paradise. Australia has a lot of flies, and in late spring to early summer you get the tiny bush flies that feed on nasal secretions and saliva. I agree they are a horrible nuisance but you get used to them. Eating outdoors here involves negotiating flies and mosquitoes. Australia is a relatively high latitude continent with most places generally in close proximity to tropical desert areas and the weather tends to be very warm in the warmer months in most places.

The landscape dries out in many places in Summer and browns off. This is in no way unique to Australian temperate areas. The same happens in many parts of the USA and many parts of Europe it may brown off as well in summer. Go look at Spain and Italy on Google street view and parts of it are completely devoid of grass in summer. Moving to a warmer climate from a very cool climate has its pros and cons and many people will decide they don't like it after all.

Each to their own.

BadgeIsBack

It happens everywhere in the world in places like the States.

It's awkward that places on the same line of longitude differ in Australia.

Justifiable too - but if like Jad, you hate the summer, it might be a good thing.

My view is that ~8.45 (we get more light in fact than this - almost 9) in Melbourne is late enough, enough time after work, I don't need it light near 10pm - and it's lighter in winter too so I can't miss the UK situation.

I think you make some very good points about Mediterranean countries. Whilst there are parrallels with Melbourne, the fact of the matter is that Melbourne has lots of cooler days.

I suppose people can take the heat in Spain as they only go there on vacation.

JAJ

In North America, there's often a difference between different parts of the same state/province.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_time_zone

Two parts of NSW are on a different timezone to the rest of the state, as far as I know.

ProudVIC

By the way, I said Australia was a high latitude continent, I meant to say low latitude.

ProudVIC

The Broken Hill area in far western NSW is on the South Australian timezone which can be a bit confusing. It's an odd situation where the people of Broken Hill do not associate with NSW as they are so much closer to Adelaide than Sydney and everyone in the town has Adelaide as their local capital city. As a result everything has to be in sync with Adelaide and SA.

JAJ

Lord Howe Island is the other exception to the standard NSW time zone.

Melbourne bound Mark

Got to say having only just learnt that Qld doesn't have daylight saving has really put me off moving there.

This winter in Melbourne seemed quite long and cold and I thought that a job in Brisbane might be the answer but with it going dark so early in summer it loses some of its appeal for me.

DadAgain

Nah - lack of DST in Brisbane is a godsend. The last thing you want is to travel home from work still in the heat of the day and have to wait an extra hour before it cools down sufficiently to wander outside away from the ever comforting air-con.

As it is in summer our dog only gets a lap of the block after about 10pm. If we had DST we'd almost have to set the alarm for middnight just to get up and walk the dog! <-- ok partly joking, but you get the point