There is the perception that Australian grit is defined by our nonchalance toward the many deadly animals we peacefully, indeed happily, coexist with.

The truth is that what makes us tough is how we weather the weather.

It takes guts to live in a country where our fire warning system starts at “Moderate” and methodically progresses toward “Catastrophic.” Where, in Far North Queensland, cyclones are so common they are described by locals as “a bit of a light breeze.” Where, to quote Forrest Gump, some days, it just starts to rain — and rains, and rains, and rains until you forget what the sun looked like and what it was like not to be constantly damp.

My childhood was defined by the weather. Christmas plans were canceled when the roads were cut by swollen rivers, classrooms were entered with muddy bare feet after braving saturated school playgrounds, and the same feet were burned by bitumen roads that sizzled in the summer sun, melting the rubber off the tires of overheated cars.

Instead of four seasons, there were two: wet and dry. During the wet season, I remember how the humidity would cling to your skin from early in the morning, and would slowly build, until it felt as though the very air you were breathing was more moisture than oxygen.

[Sign up to the Australia Letter to get news, insights and recommendations in your inbox each week.]

Then, as I stood in the backyard and raised my eyes to the heavens, the spell would break with a deafening roll of thunder, and the storm would race in from the horizon, a sheer wall of dark cloud cloaking the whole town, and bringing with it glorious, torrential rain.