how is it there?

Rachel,
Can u tell me a little about Austrailia? I will tell you about it here.
It is 9:13pm hear right now. In the spring, the tempetrue avrege is highs in the 60's.
the summer avrege in the highs at 100. Fall about 60-80. Winter it is the lowest is 3 below 0 and hights in the 30s. Have you seen snow before? I have many times. We get sleds and ride them down hills. we have some music going and our cat is twitching her tail to the beat!!!!!! well write back.

Well, for starter's, Australia's pretty big. It's only slightly smaller than the USA and is quite a bit larger than Europe. Our smallest state is several times the size of France.

Mostly, Australia is hot. In the south-west and west, it's very dry most of the year, but in the south-east it's wetter and they get snow in the mountains in winter. Most of the north is very tropical as it isn't far from the equator. I live in South Australia which is the bottom middle state (we have only six states and two territories), but I live near the south of the state and also I live in the Hills area so it's generally much cooler and wetter here than the reast of SA. There's an imaginary line running through the middle of SA called 'Goyder's line' but I personally refer to it as 'the line of no rain' as Goyder decided that it rains very rarely or never at all above that line.

Above the line is what we refer to as the 'Outback' which is actually classified as 'desert'. There are several deserts, like the Simpson Desert, which are in the north and north-west of SA. Apart from the 'Outback', the country areas are also called 'the Bush' but the Bush usually has shrubby things and trees, whereas the 'Outback' has mostly spinifex and low grass and stuff.

It's late winter now and an average daytime temperature where I live is around 15-20 degrees Celsius. In the city and on the plains, it's more like 20-25. We get rain maybe two days a week. Summer is much hotter, between 38-40 most days and not really that much cooler at night (I went out at around ten-thirty at night in January once to look at the thermometer at it was at 42C). We also get little, if any, rain from between about October to April/May most years.

But this is just for my area; it's quite different in other parts of Australia. Yes, I have seen snow, but that's rare for a South Aussie. My father comes from the UK and I can ski. There isn't very good snow in Australia, it's all wet most of the time, but we're having a good season this year and there is almost a metre in some places! But lots of people from South Australia have never seen snow, even adults.

Is a sled different from a toboggan? I saw some sleds in Australia which were quite different; toboggans here are like shaped bits of plastic. I'm too scared to use a toboggan because I did once and I went straight into a pond. Actually I think some of the run was over the pond but there was a hole in the snow and I fell in it. Whilst on a toboggan.

I just realised that I've been doing all my temperatures in Celsius and you wrote yours in Fahrenheit. Can you understand Celsuis? I can't really convert the temperatures very well but I do know that 0 degeres Celsius is equivalent to 32 Fahrenheit (freezing point of water), and 125 Fahrenheit is roughly the same as 45 Celsuis.

There's quite a bit about Australia I could tell you. I do know some stuff about America since we get lots of America TV shows here, as well as books and things, but there's lots that people who write books and TV shows just assume we know and we don't! I actually prefer British shows because a lot of the culture and language is the same, especially terminology for various things. And spelling rules.

Tell me what you want to know about Australia and I'll see if I can help. I'm sure there's lot of things I want to know about America but I can't think of any right now. I'm not entirely clear on the geography, I really don't know where any of the states are. You have so many!

Anyway, it seems I just missed you. I logged in over at the other forum and it said you were online but you went off before I could write anything! Perhaps we should work out a time for us to come on when we can both be on?

A sled is like a rectangular with a rope on the front. Ours is blue. Our dog Dafi gets the rope in his mouth and pulles us reall fast. Befor we moved here 2 years ago, we had a big hill in our back yard. he would pull the rope and then jump on the sled with Levi and I. I really don't know much about Celcius. I am used to Farenhite. If i didn't answer any questions, tell me what u want me to tell to.

Okay, over here we call that a toboggan, a sled is a bit different (and much rarer) like a wooden bench-type thing with skis on the bottom. My family doesn't own any toboggans (we hired them when we used them) but we do own a couple of 'snow-scooters' which are like scooters (obviously) only they've got a wide plastic ski on the bottom rather than wheels. It's difficult to explain. We've one blue and one red.

I used to be able to use Fahrenheit in a very basic sort of way from visiting relatives in England but they rarely use it any more, just Celsius, so I really can't use it. If it helps, Celsius was made around water; the freezing point of water is 0C and the boiling point is 100C (at sea level).

I'm going to use an internet converter. In summer, the average daytime temperature is between 100 and 117 Fahrenheit. In winter where I live, the average daytime temperature is btween about 59 and 68 Fahrenheit. The temperature I mentioned finding outdoors late at night in January once was 107 Fahrenheit.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, and you probably know anyway, but summer for us is December to February (although in all actuality, it's more like September to April). Winter is June to August. So Christmas is in summer, hence lots of people re-writing Christmas carols to take out the snow and add in the 'scorching heat'. We also get lots of bushfires in summer. I've never been in any but I lived in the city until recently; I doubt we'll get any in my area but if you go about 15 minutes in a car in any direction but the city, you'll come across burnt tree trunks indicative of a bushfire. There's an area not far from here which had some devastating bushfires not to long ago, on a day now known as 'Ash Wednesday'. You may have heard of the 'Black Saturday' bushfires two years ago; they weren't anywhere near me (in fact, they were in a different state) but I believe the Ash Wednesday ones were worse. We have an Outdoor Fire Ban from the 1st of November until the 31st of March, so no-ones allowed to burn off or have bonfires. Some days in summer we're told that it's a Total Fire Ban which means you're not even allowed to cook on a stove or light candles. There are also reports on the radio each day in summer telling you what 'Fire Danger Level' it is in your area - if you're in 'Extreme', you get evacuated. There levels are something like 'Mild', 'Moderate', 'Danger', and 'Extreme'.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent. The strange thing is, I did reply yesterday but it didn't seem to have registered, and I did ask several questions then... but I can't remember any of them. Oh well. I do know I have questions, so I'll make a new post when I think of them.

Sadly, i don't know Celsious. Thanks for the facts!
Jordyn

And I don't know Fahrenheit! Well, I know freezing point of water (32, right?) and the rough equivalent of 45C (about 115), which gives me a basic scale of reference against Celsius, but apart from that, I'm clueless. And I still don't know how Fahrenheit works. I like Celsius because it's based on the freezing point of water (0 degrees) and the boiling point at sea level (100 degrees). That's it...

from Rachel.

The ferinhite is right. I know the freezing and boling point of the Celsius, but that is all i know. So, for example, i don't know what 53 fer. is converted into celcius.
Thanks
Jordyn

Nor me. My mother reckons that if you have a Fahrenheit temperature, take thirty, and divide by two, you end up with the Celcius temperatures (and conversely, if you have a Celcius temperature, double it and add thirty, you have the Fahrenheit equivalent). I'm not sure if this works or not, though.

So 45C x 2 = 90+30 = 120F. I suppose that works, just as a general idea. It's probably not exact, though.

So, 53F - 30 = 23/2 = 11.5C (I think).

I will have to ask my momma and see what she says. Talk to you later!
Jordyn