A Year Down Under

[A re-post from last year.]

Lake Nuga Nuga

It's been over a year since Sandy and I moved down to Oz, and what a year it has been.

Huntsman spider

It is easy to think of Australia as a big flat, hot, dry place. But really it is a place of incredible beauty, amazing diversity, and at times, shockingly wild weather. Stunning beaches of the coastal plain are backed by the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range; high tablelands are laced with rainforests, gorges, and slot canyons; the temperate lands of Victoria and Tasmania are bracketed by the wet tropics of the “Top End”.

Garie Beach, NSW

For a Canadian, everything is new, different, and exciting – I feel like a kid in a toy store wondering what weird and whacky landscape or creature we'll encounter next. Ferns become trees; the conifer is replaced by the iconic eucalypt and the towering fig; the call of the raven becomes the screeching, laughing, and ringing of a 24-hour avian cacophony; the grizzly becomes the croc and the tiger shark; the glacier-clad mountain becomes the waterfall in a deep canyon, the endless sandy surf beach, and the deserted tropical island.

Goanna

In the past year, I have photographed more sunsets and gone swimming more times than in my previous 50 years combined – Australia really is a country that needs to be lived outdoors.

Blue gum

Kanangra

Lake Nuga Nuga

North Queensland coast

Hinchinbrook