Australian Summer | Updated

There is no sky like an Australian summer sky at night. After the heat breaks—usually with a violent, theatrical thunderstorm that drops two inches of rain in twenty minutes and knocks out the power—you step outside. The Milky Way is a spill of diamond dust. The Southern Cross hangs low. A fruit bat (or "flying fox") flaps overhead like a leathery omen.

But the light brings new horrors. The mosquitos whine. And somewhere in the darkening garden, a Sydney funnel-web spider is thinking very dark thoughts. australian summer

You just have to wait for the southerly buster to arrive. There is no sky like an Australian summer sky at night