Brisbane weather

I just want to take to time to tell you how amazing Brisbane winter weather is. I think it is a little bit of a local secret that even the locals don't know. We've been here nearly four weeks now and every day has been bright and sunny. This photo taken down our street could have been taken any day in the month. Almost no clouds, leaves on trees, birds singing, flowers on bushes. Apart from one day, the daytime temperatures have been around 20 degrees Celcius or higher. Nights are a bit cooler, around 10 degrees, but it's easy to stay warm in bed at those temperatures. There are not many places in the world, I wager, which has as comfortable and liveable a winter as Brisbane. I would take it over a Tokyo or Sapporo winter any day. Sure, Sapporo has beautiful snow, but living in snow week after week for months at a time is very tiresome, not to mention exhausting and pretty painful at times.Tokyo's daytime temperatures average under 20 degrees six months of the year and under 10 degrees two months of the year. That's pretty cold! Japanese revel in their cherry blossoms. They are beautiful but so terribly fleeting. In less than a week they are past their best. To view them, you usually have to weather temperatures around 10 to 15 degrees. Australia has a beauty all of its own, but it is less transient and less seasonal. I think this is one reason that Australians don't appreciate their amazing land as much as they should. Its beauty is almost always present (at least in this part of Australia) and therefore under appreciated. Aside from the warmth, the most noticeable thing about Brisbane this time of year for us is the wide blue skies with few clouds. Japanese weather is frequently cloudy and 122 days of the year it rains. Of course, Australia suffers what seems to be perpetual drought. But the blue skies are truly beautiful. Probably not for the farmer who relies on rain, but for a non-farmer, I feel the freedom to enjoy the clear skies. It is a real pleasure to even hang the washing out in weather like this. And to know that it will certainly be dry when you bring it in. Daily we get to walk the boys to school in warm sunshine, covered by wide blue skies, crunch dried gum leaves underfoot and have our ears entertained by the calls of hundreds of native birds. What a joy!