It has been overcast and raining on and off in Melbourne for the last couple of days. We had a good storm yesterday afternoon whilst I was out mountain biking at Lysterfield with hail the size of golf balls. For a short period I was forced to seek shelter under a tree with my pack over my head with some other riders to avoid the painful strikes (I have a few bruises today!). There were reports of smashed windows and damaged cars. Anyway, an interesting phenomenon happened after the hail and rain died down which I have only ever seen a few times before. Because the morning had been sunny and warm the ground had retained a lot of heat under the tree canopy; which meant that much of the rain and hail evaporated quickly. As a result an eerie fog rose up from the ground and hung low amongst the lichen covered gum trees and granite boulders. The combination of saturated lichen from the rain with hail on the ground and low fog was extremely unusual and photogenic. Unfortunately I was a long way from my car and camera and was unable to capture the scene (I did enjoy riding through it). I did make an attempt with the camera in my iphone but this was most definitely the fish that got away. I will make sure my small Canon S90 pocket camera is in my backpack on all future rides – lesson learned. More isolated rainstorms and  thunderstorms are forecast for late this afternoon so I am heading down to Cape Shank in the hopes of some good light.