It’s cold in the mornings. Rain clouds the skies and floods the roads. Sometimes the frost prickles the grass by the roadside. It’s a world away from waking in Adelong, where the musical, haunting song of the magpie heralds a blue sky day.
The scale
of distance in Australia seems different. To get a long view here, you have to
go high. In Adelong, just look out the back door. Rolling scenery draws the eye onwards, into a
vanishing point that diminishes with the curve of the earth.
The clatter
of timber trucks rolling by – full one way, empty the other – echoes against
the tin roofs of the last houses in the town.
Crimson rosellas, loud and raucous, shoot past at speed. Galahs, the rowdy boys in pink and grey,
gather in the field and browse – feathered and feisty. The dogs bark,
attention
seeking.
 |
| Galahs |
The air is
warm, spring promise a comfortable temperature as the day grows and the light,
clear and bright, contrasts the grey of the trees against the verdant green and
almost blistering blue of the sky. A few clouds, white and distinguished,
sometimes graced the scene, promising some relief, yet reluctant to do so.
The magpie warbles, the galahs chatter, the rosellas squawk and the European goldfinch – familiar
and yet strangely out of place – sings his syrupy song from the telephone wire. The air is clean, the day bringing promise of
exploration. A wood fire burns, to chase
away the last of winter’s chill from the stone floors and walls.
And now at
home, the fire burns constantly, for winter has come crashing in after a false
start; warm October missed as I spent weeks at the other side of the world. Now
it is cold, dark, wet, and the world closed in on itself both by proximity and
the need to pull close, keep warm, and shut out the weather and each other.
Photos (C) Carolyn Sheppard
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