I didn’t make the early start I had intended to make, I was distracted by a cup of tea.

Actually, I ended up in a lengthy conversation with Sharon an ecologist and Aboriginal woman. She’d arrived last last night after her train was delayed for two hours as a result of bushfires.

She has been travelling across New South Wales documenting the damage done by the fires.

In some areas, the fire has burned so fiercely that it has turned fertile topsoil to dust – the dust haze I saw above Sydney yesterday.

And what goes up must come down.

She had come up from Mildura, the wine region where mud has covered the grapes – there is no water so they’re hoping for rain to wash them.

Sharon wasn’t convinced that the rain would come.

She told me that Aboriginal communities are again being moved off their traditional lands… the reason water shortages, though there is water there… it’s just that it us sold to the highest bidder – cattle farmers, sheep farmers, Coca Cola…

Water is traded as a commodity on the Australian Stock Market.