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

Here are some photographs I took today of the sculpture “Wide Brown Land” by Marcus Tatton, Chris Viney and Futago at the National Arboretum in Canberra.

What a wonderful piece of public art.

Canberra Botanic Gardens

I learned more about Australian plants in an hour walking around the Botanic Gardens, Canberra than I think I’ve learned in my life. Although I was a member of the Gould League as a child, most of the detail about banksias and grevilleas has never really sunk in. I love plants, I’m just not one for “detail”. Ask me to name a flower, and I’d struggle. This is despite having grown up with a garden of my own which I tended with regularity.… Read the rest “Canberra Botanic Gardens”