Loved the strongly contrasting colours of the earth and flowers in the Red Centre of the Botanical gardens on the lower slopes of Black Mountain.
Had our first sighting of a wallaby and got very close to a lazy dragon lizard.
Author / canddaway
Koala
Late afternoon and this Koala was dozing nicely. Cuddly as he looks you would not want to get in the middle of two males fighting. Check out those claws.
Seeing this fella and two more koalas capped the end of a great day in the nature reserve. Thank you Shona for sharing your deep wisdom and passion for this place.
MFC and DBP
Another amazing day.
Boro had beaten Man U in the League Cup before we’d even had breakfast!
Then at the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve this afternoon we saw the elusive duck-billed platypus about 5 yards away from us.
Awesome!!
3rd country, 4th flag
The flag of the Aboriginal people of Australia. It was created as a symbol of unity and national identity for Aboriginal people during the land rights movement of the early 1970s.
Yellow represents the sun the giver of life. Red represents the red earth (the relationship to the land) and the red ochre used in ceremonies. Black represents the Aboriginal people.
Within without
In the sculpture park of the National Gallery of Australia we came across a fascinating concrete and basalt stupa, set in water, earth and landscaping. It lent itself to reflection and stillness.
Artist: James Turrell, 2010
Mighty Murrumbidgee
A tranquil boat trip down the river in the late afternoon with friends allowed us close encounters with lizards, fish and later a beautiful kingfisher.
Gundaroo
Sally Paskins’ Store in Gundaroo, a small rural village about 25 miles north of Canberra, was built in 1886 and is a well preserved example of a slab hut, a dwelling made from slabs of split or sawn timber with a brick chimney.
Sally (Sarah) Paskins, the original owner, seems to have been a real character who kept a cockatoo on the counter of the shop.
Art & Soul
Ken Tjungkara of the Pitjantjatjara people painted this beautiful story of the journey of the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades. This star Dreaming is one of the most ancient stories amongst Aboriginal communities.
The painting hangs in the National Gallery of Australia.
Wide brown land
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
Dorothea Mackellar – from her poem My Country written in 1908
The metal sculpture, based on Dorothea’s own handwriting, spans a wide vista at the National Arboretum in Canberra.
Boat people
The SIEV X memorial is a reminder of the 400 children, mothers and fathers who died on a refugee boat which sank in Indonesian waters inside a temporary Australian border protection surveillance area around the Christmas Islands in October 2001.
Each pole represents one person who died. Information nearby states: ‘Our message in making the memorial is that Australia is not a country defined by fear and greed. Love is stronger than fear. Kindness is stronger than greed’.
A challenge to live out in Australia and across Europe.
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