It’s Australia.  It’s December.  It’s very hot.  It’s bushfire season!

After attending the final Emirates Australian Open pre-tournament press conferences good friend, Barry Gentle and myself headed some three hours north of Sydney to catch up with two other good friends – Michael Court and Paul Bennett.

We were heading to Forster/Tuncurry, twin towns located in the Great Lakes region of New South Wales.  The trip was just overnight and with the goal of playing the Forster/Tuncurry course and then return to Sydney.

However around 45 minutes drive south of our destination we came across the first signs of a bushfire raging in the Coombe Park area to the west of Forster/Tuncurry.

And as you can see from the photographs below (click to enlarge) the smoke from the bushfire created some amazing scenes and it became even more spectacular as the sun began to set.

Make sure you look at the last handful of photographs as they’re the pick!

As for the golf?

We ventured out onto the Forster/Tuncurry course and in a close encounter Michael had two four-point birdies to win the day by a point with 33 stableford points.

My good self pared the last four holes to record 32 points and shut out Barry who was third with 31 points.