Sunrise and Sunset

I think I mentioned before how early it gets dark here. Sunset is at 5.30pm.

"Yeh, but it is their winter" you are thinking.

Well, true it is the heart of winter now. But even in their warmest month (january), sunset is at 7pm!

Basically we are still pretty close the the equator here, so the differences in times between day and night are pretty constant, whatever time of the year (i.e. about 12 hours daylight always).

Which takes some getting used to. I remember being in Capetown in October (dark just before 7), and you are so used to summer == long nights to do stuff, that it keeps surprising you when it is dark so early.

Quite a lot of folk seem to start work early all year round (and schools start early), so you get a bit of daylight to do stuff at the end of the day. But it is still a far far shorter day than we are used to getting in our summer... for example, length of day in the UK just now is 16 1/2 hours.

It sort of affects everything you can do, when 6 months of the year you are used to an extra 4 hours of daylight at the end of your working day (even if the weather is rubbish it is still light) which they just never get.