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.
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.
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.
Saw our first kangaroos whilst walking in Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve this afternoon. Also a brief encounter with a lone cockatoo. Maybe a duck-billed platypus tomorrow?!
Great to be with friends in Canberra (yet more ginger biscuits. Hurrah!)
The indigenous art in the National Gallery was soul-stirringly wonderful this morning.
We feel ready to set off and find that elusive kangaroo!
We passed close by this island somewhere in the Pacific between leaving Fiji and spying the east coast of Australia.
In Fiji time everything slows down and it seems easy to live more fully in the present moment. A gift of a week. Vinaka – thanks.
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