From Bush to Rainforest

We were looking for a special, magical place to call home and over the course of three months we had travelled up to the top of Queensland, Australia and back down into the middle, into the state of New South Wales.

I had a vision.

I wanted our farm.

This farm would encompass cleared land, timber land for milling and the very important natural bush.

The quest took us (the other half being a totally patient critter with all of my seeking) along many weird and underdeveloped roads leaving himself all proud of his skills while I was frozen and holding on tightly.

This goanna photo was taken on a piece of land that was accessed through a long winding dirt track then over a bridge made by the owner (OMG). Another section of dirt track opened out to the house.

We had gone ahead of the real estate man and just casually got out of the car in the clearing.

Ooops

The Really Large goanna (lace monitor) had been dining on something dead that he’d ‘hidden’ under some leaves about a metre away from where we had parked. He was so camouflaged that we only saw him when he ran up this huge tree.

Thank goodness he ran up the tree as we have heard bush stories about them running up anything vertical. (aaarrrggghhh)

He just stayed up here while we checked out the house, all happy holding onto his tree.

While working out our next steps we rented a house in Grafton, NSW for a while, on the hill looking over the powerful Clarence River.

The golf course wasn’t far away which gave local kangaroos a place to both rest and sleep. They used to travel past our place each way and the noise of the whole mob bouncing up the town streets was impressive.

This guy was a budding male which had most likely been kicked out due to his adulthood. I believe they still fight for leadership.

Some of the more scenic wonders living alongside us in Grafton were these King Parrots. I went out one morning to find this cheeky thing looking back at me from the top of my sunflower. I always talk to the critters when I’m going to photograph them, and this dude just looked back at me and leant in for a big feed of sunflower seeds. No fear of humans at all. Sharp beak though.

On the banks of the river live these Water Dragons and they just seemed to pose for me whenever I was there with the camera. They’re definitely wild and maybe, like a lot of reptiles, being still is their defence mechanism.

These are very adaptable critters as they get to know a good café quicker than a coffee fiend.

While we were up in what is locally called FNQ (far north Queensland) we stayed in a cabin on the edge of the rainforest. Mumma Pademelon was very inquisitive but protective of her baby which was quite big when we finally saw it.

My love affair with critters has led me to write kids poems in a book I called Kidz’N’Critters, a storytelling activity book.

Probably any photographer will tell you about the change in your viewpoint once you begin framing shots and my path led me to create stories for this book ranging from worms to dragonflies to spiders.

Once I started seeing poems and critters together I just couldn’t stop and the most corny poems emerged but children just loved them.

It’s a world I love and I truly love showing children how interesting these critters are and how they work with and for us in their own life paths.