Did the Earth move for you too?

Aftershocks are common in Darwin. Earthquakes, usually further north in the ocean somewhere, frequently travel all the way to Darwin where they make the Earth sway briefly beneath your feet and, at first, lead you to question your sanity. "Is it just me or...?" In fact, my favourite local news report was when the top story started, "no, you didn't imagine it..."

But last night was a whopper. A magnitude 7 earthquake in Indonesia was felt in Darwin last night and was my first official earthquake. I woke about midnight when the bed started shaking and quickly realised this was no mild aftershock but the real thing. The whole building shook, the windows rattled, the appliances wobbled. It was disconcerting but not overly violent (Indonesia is after all still a way away). The lack of major fault lines in Australia means I wasn't frightened. I knew we were just getting the edge. But it was definitely an experience. One I wouldn't want repreated at a higher magnitude.