Darwin in the Dark Ages (12 hours with no Power)

So I wake up promptly just after 1 in the morning (Wednesday 12 march) when the power goes out. Fan goes off. Air-Con goes off. Almost instantly a patina of sweat breaks out on me. High humidity, temps in the high 20 degrees Celsius region. The room feels much smaller than it actually is in this strange silence. Darwin + Wet Season + No power = SUCKS big time!
Phew! Power goes back on but only for around 10 minutes then it's off again. Waiting, waiting.
Been off for a while now. I check the local newspaper site on Facebook. The NT news is usually on to this stuff quickly. Holy Cow! Turns out the blackout is widespread. That's interesting. A town as far south as 300km (Katherine) who runs off the Darwin power station has gone dark. Starting to look a little serious now.
The rest of the night was then broken into checking on the kid who got an ice pack from the freezer (good idea) drinking water from the fridge before it heats up, having a couple of cold showers, talking to the dog, playing some games on the ipad, and eventually having a few short sleeps broken by rolling over and moaning about it.
By 6 I wake everyone (who are already awake just in a semi Zombie like state) and tell them we are going for a drive with the Air-Con in the car on max and a walk on the beach with the dog. Also to listen to the radio to hear what's going on. Schools will be closed for the day and non-essential public servants are told to stay home. I now have the day off officially.
It is always good to be on a beach anywhere when the sun comes up and we got a special treat when we spotted a waterspout under heavy clouds that sparked with lightning.

Sunrises behind me but colours the clouds in front of me. Or is UFO colours?

Water Spout on horizon in photo center.

The weather was not stormy over Darwin at the time of the blackout. Something must have caused the system wide failure and no doubt we will be told something in the future.
After our beach walk we had a BBQ breakfast and ate some sausages that probably would not last much longer even in the fridge we tried not to open at all. What to do now? Not much really.

I had some miniatures that I had 1st stage flocked the night before. I brushed off the flock and glued on the small areas of the 2nd colour flock. That was the only hobby activity I did. After that I thought why not wash the car, I am sweating buckets already so might as well sweat some more. It was a little over cast when I started but that cloud cover was gone by the time I was done.
After that I sat inside sweating a bit more and looked up sadly at the non-rotating ceiling fan and thought I might as well clean them. 11.30 and another cold shower and time for another cool car cruise and end it with a swim.
SHWMBO works at the hospital and has a swipe card for access to a big pool on the campus. But before that a quick recce to see if i can find a shop open that will sell me a car phone recharge plug as by now the phone was flat. Mission success despite no working traffic lights and when we drive back towards our suburb the traffic lights are back on. A good sign.
Power restored at our pad just shy of 12hours later.
No hunting of Humans for fresh meat required, no systematic looting for tinned food and meds, and no Zombies. Some people did report seeing strange lights in the sky around the time the power went off though.
I was planning on getting stuck in to painting in the evening but I was exhausted and went to sleep around 4.30 but got up for a feed watched some telly then back to sleep in the heavenly air-con. Lost a bit of hobby time but it wasn't a bad day really.
I got some hang time with the family, got some exercise and domestic work done. Having a capital city (even if it is a small one) without power for 12 hours is an emergency situation and a poor reflection on the electrical system design here. Tonnes of food stuff will be in the garbage and productivity lost. It will be talked about in Darwin for years to come I think.

Apology for the lack of hobby related words or photos in this post and it's a lengthy one so thanks for reading if you got this far. Sometimes it's interesting to share something in our lives other than gaming. Normal transmission will resume shortly.

"We lost a day" someone said at work now that we are back and all seems normal. I thought what a strange thing to say. I felt like I gained a day not being at work.

Cheers from Brendon