South Eastern Gulf country

Another trip - this time into the south eastern Gulf country - 5 hours west of Cairns is the little town of Georgetown, in the middle of northern cattle country. I based myself in the Georgetown pub for a week. The properties here are smaller and the country much harder - the big companies are not interested in this area, the soil is lighter and there is a lot of rock in places. Trees, anthills, long dry grass,rocks and red sand. The countryside is much more heavily forested with a highly diverse forest, natural pastures are less nutritious and the performance of the cattle herds is not as good as in the more western parts of the gulf. Improved genetics, supplementation and the live export market have changed the economics of cattle production in the north and family businesses can survive. Hard country however breeds hard people but people are still very friendly and welcoming to a stranger arriving to ask questions. Family size properties here are still huge and run between 5,000 and 10,000 head over a wide expanse of land. The water is wonderful with spring fed creeks and rivers flowing through hard rocky country. It is always a surprise in Australia when you are travelling through hard, dry country to suddenly come across a crystal clear creek running through the rock or the sand.

Southern New South Wales

The week after travelling in North Queensland I drove south, deep into New South Wales, over 800 klm, so more than 2500 klm south of where I was in the Gulf. The countryside is noticeably different, the light is softer with the southern latitude and cooler climate. The imprint of "civilisation" is everywhere, country is cleared of trees, planted to crops and pastures, there are more towns, more houses, tractors,silos and sheds and many more visible people. There are quiet places but the country does not have the stillness that infuses everything in the north. The trees are different and the colours are more muted - greys and greenish greys, straw colour of winter grass and more clouds in the skies. The country in the south has a softer feel, less elemental, less wild, still dry - at this time in the south the land is waiting for rain after a dry summer, in the north, the summer rain is finished and the dry season is beginning.

Cattle North Queensland

This is big country here in Far North Queensland, the cattle are tall, lean Brahmans and they are here in big numbers, the properties are huge, the trucks are big (130 head in each truck) and there is a lot of money involved. The Gulf has had a good season and the cattle look wonderful, this is not the case all through the north, however. The largest breeding area in Northern Australia - the Barkly Tableland is disastrously dry after missing a wet season, so the big cattle companies are moving huge numbers of cattle - The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) have supposedly moved 80,000 cows and the Acton family over 70,000. With fuel prices like they are - that is a major expense and they will all go back when (if ?) it rains. The roads in North Queensland are full of cattle trucks heading east with cattle and returning west empty. Apparently it is impossible to hire drovers - the few that are left in the business are flat out. It will be interesting to watch the changes to the industry as fuel prices continue to climb and the climate changes.

Downs Country - Far North Queensland

Driving across the downs in Far North Queensland - open flat country with the horizon running forever. A pure, blue enormous sky above the pink of Flinders grass, straw of Mitchell grass, the occasional Yellow wood, Whitewood and clump of Gidgee against the skyline. In the sky, like swarms of insects are the flocks of budgerigars, flashes of green when the light catches them, they move through the sky like schools of fish, turning together on an invisible signal, alighting all along a fence then in the air wheeling, circling, chattering, then on the ground, in the air again. I stop the car and walk amongst them entranced by the colour, the spontaneous movement, the surprising sound of frantically beating wings as the whole flock turns above me. I have a flock of hundreds, maybe thousands above and around me and in the distance I can see three, four, five more smudges of other flocks, turning and moving through the clear air, above the flat, flat land. It has been a good season in the Gulf, the grasses are seeding prolifically and the birds are multiplying and moving constantly. There are Plain Turkeys, Wedge Tail Eagles, Hawks, Pigeons, Galahs, Corellas and the occasional stately Brolga. Mostly, however, I am left with the impression of the budgerigars, green and swirling above the pink and straw of the grasses, the stillness, quietness and sheer vastness of the timeless landscape - flat and forever.

Far North Queensland - Dry Season

Arriving in Mt. Isa, a two and a half hour flight from Brisbane, I find my hire car and head out of the dusty, mining town and into the magnificent landscape of far north Queensland.
It is the colours that strike me first, then the stillness - on a grand scale, then the movement - on a small scale.
The colours, the stillness, the movement are all sublimated, dominated by the sky - the vast expanse of blue, shades of blue, but nothing else, no clouds, no mountains, no jet trails or buildings, just endless blue ! Against this is the red of the rock and the dirt, clean white trunks of the gums, straw coloured grass and spinifex and the grey green of the eucalypt leaves. At first the stillness is so powerful and complete it is awe inspiring, no apparent movement in the sky and none on the ground. After a time I sense and see little birds move amongst the trees and shrubs, ants and lizards on the ground, in the distance cattle and kangaroos.
Later, on the downs, a full moon setting in the west and in the eastern sky, yellow and red on the skyline as the sun rises above a dead straight horizon. The moon is white and clear against a deep blue line of sky on the horizon, above that pink then the grey of early morning, cloudless sky. Below the blue a line of grey green foliage, straw coloured grass then the magic pink of ripe Flinders grass, black dirt of the downs. I gaze and gaze.

SNOW REFLECTIONS

Growing up in north and western Queensland did not prepare us very well for understanding or knowing snow - heat, dry, floods and droughts maybe, clear dry skies, flies - but snow no. We thought there was just snow !! Now we know there are many different snows - dry snow, powder snow, wet snow, hard or soft, safe or dangerous - snow you can pack into a snow ball or snow man and snow that just doesn't pack. There is fresh snow and old snow, solid, cold snow and melting moving snow, snow that is safe to walk, ski or climb on and snow that is extremely dangerous and to be avoided at all costs. Most of all we found that snow is just beautiful and a wonderful new experience for all of us. We walked in the melting snow of spring and the fresh snow of autumn and winter, skiied, tobaganned, built snow men and had many, many snow fights. We experienced snow falling gently, softly and so, so quietly, snow blowing into our faces so hard it hurt as we struggled to the Col Frontiere at Peyrelue. Fresh snow resting on every surface so that touching a branch would result in an avalanche, snow on your face and and all down your back. Walking through the forest three days after heavy snow we were absolutely stunned by the beauty of randomn snow falls - big lumps of snow suspended high in the trees would suddenly and soundlessly drop and fall to the ground hitting lower branches all the way down - the result was a shower of snow particles catching the sun - just magic !! The sheer beauty of the landscape under a layer of snow has delighted and moved us deeply - edges are rounded and softened, sounds muffled and colours while reduced in number almost to white, black and blue have an intensity that is stunning at any time of the day. Waking up and going outside the cabane de Cherue surrounded by deep snow and apparently little else but blue sky, the only sound a little wind through the valley is an experience which will stay with us all.

Easter

Easter this year was a traditional Australian easter for our family. We stayed at home, a number of visitors called in and stayed and we played cricket in the garden, rode horses, walked in the Bald Rock National Park and ate some chocolate. Easter was early but cool and a bit wet, so cricket was good, but swimming was out the water at Stanthorpe is a bit cool in this weather !!!. Walking in the National Park was excellant, one of our favourite walks is to South Bald Rock, a couple of hours along the old state border fence, open views and cool, forested tracks. The border fence runs along the watershed of the Great Dividing Range so the track is high with slopes to the east and the west. Granite country is endlessly fascinating with changing colours, shapes and textures and a huge array of vegetation - ferns and mosses in profusion this year after a wet end of summer and beginning to autumn. The huge granite boulders at South Bald Rock are spectacular and provide a wonderful landscape in which to lose yourself wandering, gazing and imagining. The water pouring off the rocks over the ages has left little stream beds and coloured tracks across the surface and there are gardens with stunted trees and shrubs scattered across the huge open spaces on top of the rock. Massive boulders balance unbelievably and threaten to topple at any moment. The gorge through the middle of the rock provides habitat for remnant rainforest species and caves if we can ever find them.

Healthy horses

Re-Acquaintance with friends

We have very much enjoyed becoming reacquainted with our animal friends. Zephyr, the Kelpie is fit and totally overjoyed to see us - dogs are wonderful !! The horses are a bit more reserved as they sense our return may mean the end of an extended holiday ?? They are all full of feed and fresh grass and look soft and round and beautiful, it will be a shame to re-aquaint them with the world of work, but necessary for them as it is for us.

Back in the country

We are very fortunate to be arriving back in the country after good rain. Dams are full, creeks are running and the stock are happy and well. The rain continues and in good Australian fashion the drought may well be broken with floods !!

Dams are full

Impressions on arrival

Back in Australia - in Brisbane at 8-00 am we emerge from customs and the airport, blinking like moles into the bright sunlight and I am struck by the smell of the tropics and the verdant growth of trees, shrubs and grass around the airport. The green is vivid, all encompassing and incredibly striking after winter in France. It is sunny and humid, you can smell and feel the growth happening. There has been very good rain and after a long time without, everything is a riot of growth - luxuriant, humid, tropical growth, it feels as though everything is a part of this growth, even the air which is heavy and growing itself.

The casualness and the space are immediately apparent, it is rush hour at 8-00 am and waiting in the sun for a train is a very relaxed process, the train arrives and there is plenty of time to stroll on and find a place. A little further on the train stops while a couple buy tickets from the stationmaster and after the purchase is complete and they board the train, the stationmaster emerges from the ticket office, glances up and down the track, blows his whistle and we move on - a far cry from taking the metro in Paris. The clothes people are wearing are casual in the extreme, sloppy at times - summer in Brisbane !!! and the pace of everything is relaxed. After a while it occurs to me that if someone from Paris arrived like this at this time they would think - " How does anything ever get done around here !!" Things do get done and the train and the bus run on time with a minimum of fuss and stress.

Overweight people - the number of overweight people is an immediate impression, very rare in France but disturbingly common here. One can see fast food being consumed and sold in the streets and the cafes - a big part of the problem ??

No smoking, very few people smoking and absolutely no smoking in public places.

After Paris and the north of France the space is overwhelming, space between people, between cars, between houses and as we leave Brisbane - between towns. The roads seem empty by comparison and the pace is slower, pressure is less - life slows and flows.

Mango trees with mangoes ripening, huge luxurious figs, tropical grasses bursting out of the ground and hiding fences, Bos Indicus cattle with humps and long ears, rivers with big beds and river banks and small flows, signs of recent flooding, eucalyptus trees and space.

At home, the peace and quiet, the type of peace that comes with hearing only bird sounds and the wind in the trees - a deep, deep peace !

There is however, within me a feeling of dislocation and a strong feeling of sadness after leaving Laruns and the Vallee d'Ossau. I feel we have travelled far and fast and not all of me has moved, there is a significant part of me still in the valley and the mountains. I find myself later looking up the Meteo site for a bulletin on the weather in Laruns and the condition of the snow in the surrounding mountains. I look for a boulangarie as we pass through the towns or a sign saying - Vente Fromage de Brebis.

Winter Trees

The trees have been almost as surprising as the colours in their winter beauty.

Leafless trees form clear distinct outlines against the sky, the mountains, the white snow and the brown fields. Loss of leaves reveals varied craggy shapes, twisted branches and filaments of twigs with buds already waiting - confident of the ever recurring cycles of nature. Should we tell the trees about Climate Change or perhaps if we listen they are telling us now !

The trees form a dominant presence and in many ways are emblematic for me of the winter landscape. Skeletons of trees dominate ridge lines, bare branches frame landscapes. In a forest without leaves the mossy trunks and lichen covered branches are the main features above the ground. The trees are powerful reminders of the regeneration process of winter as they stand dormant, but with tiny buds already swollen and prepared for warmer, sunnier times.

The bare branches make long lean shadows on the ground and individual trees form a screen through which glimpses of background can be discerned framed by brown and black twigs and branches. The shape of the tree, the colour of the trunk with its associated lichens and mosses are revealed for all the world to see - or for that part of the world that is prepared to brave the elements to see a world presented bare, cloaked by winter, occasionally by snow but always by the blanket of winter light - the result of a sun low in the sky, of cold moist air.

When the trees are covered in snow another type of beauty altogether appears - from a distance it is a white veil below which the shape and the colour of the trees can be seen. In the forest it is a magical world of white, branches hanging low with the weight, snow on every horizontal surface and piled up against the trunks, the trunks grey and black against the white, bursts of silver and white as a clump of snow falls and catches the sun.