The last few weeks end up being like a holiday at the end of the trip – moving from Melbourne along the South Coast of New South Wales to Sydney and eventually to my family’s home in Scone. We drive through an endless pall of bushfire smoke, with much of the south east of Australia …
Tag Archives: australia
Aireys Inlet, Great Ocean Road, Victoria
The contrast is absolute. Today we walk through a fecund eucalypt forest in the Otway National Park. It’s a sharp, winding 500-metre climb through grand, goal post straight gums, dotted with occasional grey bulges that sporadically stretch a rear leg and scratch behind a furry ear. They are koalas, still electrifying to witness in the …
Mildura, Victoria
You can’t live without hope that things will change for the better You can’t live without the dream of someone reading your letter – Colin Hay, Next Year People ‘It’s a dust bowl.’ These are the parting words from our host in Adelaide when we mention we are heading to Mildura that day. I only …
Pot Alley, Kalbarri, Western Australia
So here’s a nasty little gash in the West Australian coastline, where the ocean water surges and boils. The waves brutally invade the small beach before retreating again, only for the thin strip of sand to be reconquered by the next violent roller. The water, whipped by a constant south-westerly, heaves in before sucking back …
Carnarvon, Western Australia
The four of us are lying on our backs, with our legs on a shelf so that our calves and feet are above our heads. Eddie is on one side of me, Sandi to my right and Frank next to her. Eddie and Frank are dressed in astronaut suits. It’s a very small space, and …
Just north of Rockhampton, Qld
We are camped just north of Rockhampton, just off the Bruce Highway. It’s down near a scrubby gully that sings with birdsong in the dawn, but close enough to the highway to hear the hum and grumble of truck exhaust brakes overnight. The entire aural composition is punctuated by a rooster, hidden from view, whose …
Big Country 