In the tiny Mallee town of Walpeup, barely a soul was stirring in the late afternoon, and why would they?
The outdoors was no place to be as this town broke Victoria’s maximum temperature record, reaching 48.9 degrees about 3.30 on Tuesday afternoon. It wasn’t just the hottest place in Victoria. It was the hottest place on planet Earth – though an hour earlier, the small South Australian town of Renmark had that dubious honour.
The previous Victorian record of 48.8 was set in Hopetoun in 2009.
Any more than a few minutes in the sun on Tuesday was downright dangerous. Having spent the day in the Walpeup and Ouyen region and spoken to its residents myself, I did not fancy being outside much either. In Ouyen, which is significantly more populated, it was just about as hot.
I started the day in the relative cool of the early morning with farmer Linton Hahnel, who was tending the sheep at his Ouyen farm, ensuring they had water. He said work would stop because of the heat and there would be no more farming in the sun.
Ouyen had already experienced several days hotter than 40 degrees, and the searing temperatures could continue until the weekend.
“It is a long spell of particularly hot weather, and it’s still going up until Saturday, so it’s another three or four days yet,” Hahnel said. “It’ll get tiring.”
He said the heat was typically most intense between 5pm and 7pm, when the sun was getting low in the sky.
“The sun shines in under the brim of your hat and under the verandahs. You can’t seem to get out of it. Every time you look up you’re looking into the sun. That’s when it’s hot. That’s when it’s time to go to the lake and jump in.”
By early afternoon on Tuesday, the temperature had passed 47 degrees. I stepped outside in Ouyen, which felt like being submerged in a hot bath.
In the shade it was almost manageable. But in the sun it was a skin-prickling heat. Within minutes my mouth was drying out and my head was stinging in the sun.
Standing on the road, I could feel the heat penetrating the soles of my hiking shoes until I needed to hop from foot to foot until I could get out of the sun. I felt like a dancing bear. I knew my body temperature was starting to rise and needed air-conditioning urgently.
All the heat clichés applied. The wind felt like a hairdryer dialled up to its hottest setting. Of course, I tried frying an egg in the sun. Within minutes the translucent liquid was beginning to turn white. About 20 minutes later, the yolk was looking pretty well cooked too.
Just about the only sounds I could hear were the hum of air-conditioners, the scraping of dry eucalyptus leaves along the ground and the occasional whoosh of tyres from a ute coasting along the road.
There was barely a voice to be heard. Pedestrians were exceedingly rare. The Mallee Highway, which connects Ouyen to Walpeup, was near deserted apart from the occasional SUV or mammoth road train.
By contrast, the atmosphere was jovial in Ouyen’s Victoria Hotel as dozens of townspeople packed in. Rowdy cheers arose when live footage of themselves flashed up on the television screens courtesy of a news crew set up near the bar.
Ouyen Lake, completed in 2018, has been a godsend. The expansive body of water is a triumph of community commitment, with many volunteer hours going into its construction.
Ouyen resident Renae Lanigan said it did wonders for mental health.
“I see the benefits for the town, with people walking and just getting together,” she said. “It’s lovely.”
But on Tuesday afternoon it was abandoned – too hot even for lake swimming.
To those who grew up here, prolonged heat spells go with the territory. Lifelong Ouyen resident Donald McGregor grew up without air-conditioning and slept outside when the temperature soared.
He said summers in the past 10 years had been more mild and humid than the current season. The heat now, McGregor said, was more extreme.
“It depends on the wind. Hopefully, it doesn’t get too savage,” he said in the afternoon heat on Tuesday.
Linton’s mother, Moyne Hahnel, 93, who grew up in Walpeup, lived without electricity as a child. The family cooked with a wood-fired oven. She remembers the temperature pushing past 47 degrees.
In the evenings they would take the kitchen table outside and eat cold roast lamb, so they would not have to light the oven. They would also sleep on the verandah.
“Mum used to get a sheet and dip it in cold water and put it over us because the mosquitoes were just in plague proportions,” Moyne Hahnel, who now lives in Ouyen, said.
She was putting water out for the birds and keeping an eye on water levels on Tuesday in case they were beginning to run dry. Even hawks will visit her property for a drink when it gets really hot.
Was she worried about the heat and its effect on the health of the townspeople?
“Absolutely not. We are very spoiled today,” she said. “We can come inside and turn on the air-conditioner. Plenty of cold drinks in the fridge.”
She said heatwaves today did not feel as if they lasted as long as when she was a child.
“I’ve lived through very hot times.”
But as climate change increases the likelihood of more extreme hot spells, I shudder to think of the summers to come. It’s enough to make you break out in a cold sweat.
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Benjamin Preiss is The Age’s regional editor. He was previously state rounds reporter and has also covered education for The Age.Connect via X or email.
