This week’s Where’s my backpack travel theme is time.
I can’t be sure of the exact time in this photo but it looks from the hands on the clock that it was almost 9am (which would make sense as I took the photo on my way to the office). The date was 23 September 2009. Sydney was experiencing the aftermath of a magnificent dust storm.
At around 6am that day, I had woken up to an eery orange light in the bedroom and gone outside to see this:
It looked like the dawn of the apocalypse or something!
According to media reports on the day:
The fiery haze was the result of the sun hitting the blanket of dust, Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jane Golding said.
“The reason for the dust is we had some really strong winds in the inland areas of NSW and in South Australia for a sustained period yesterday,” she said.
“That’s lifted a whole lot of dust off the ground because it’s quite dry out there, many of those areas are still drought affected.”
The lifted dust had been carried by the winds into Sydney.
“I’ve not seen anything like this before,” Ms Golding said.
The reddish haze was expected to fade as the sun got higher in the sky, Ms Golding said. The haze had turned from a crimson red to orange by about 7am, and then faded to yellow by about 7.30am.
But it was not known what would happen to the dust.
“This is such an infrequent event … it’s hard to say when the dust will stop.”
Empressnasigoreng's Blog 
I remember my daughter having no idea what was happening when the dawn broke in this weird red light – she thought things had gone horribly wrong in Sydney.
Yes, same. I was the first awake at our place and couldn’t see anyone out in the street.