Black Sunday in Perth!

Just a quick note before we leave for Melbourne tomorrow - sorry no time for a picture. We have spent the weekend in Mandurah - had a great time - but on the way home saw the smoke from 2 fires. One was about 20 - 30 mins from where we live but it has burnt out of control for a whole day and destroyed 64 houses - the pictures on the TV were horrendous. It was started by a man using an angle grinder in his garden! The second was very near to us but much smaller and we have not yet found out exactly where it was - suffice it to say when we got off the bus at Suz's house there was a lot of black smoke not far away and smoke wafting down the end of the road. It made me choke and our clothes smelt of smoke when we got in. We kept an eye on it for a few hours but it diminished. We think it may have been up the river valley where we went cycling last week. Very scarry experiences for the people involved and a constant danger here because it is so dry. Melbourne have had floods so we will be going from one extreme to another!