My Australia

I love Australia.

I mean, I reeeeeeally love Australia.

My parents are second and third generation Aussie, of British, Irish and Scandinavian descent. But I wasn’t born on Australian soil. My father served in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and I joined my family via a Chinese hospital in Hong Kong. I was six months old when I sailed home for the first time.

I am so lucky that I was born to live in this country, even if my skin-type is somewhat sub-optimal for the climate. There are so many astounding things about this place. So much diversity and beauty. So much contrast and danger. So many internet memes to live up to.

So, ok, we'll start with the obvious.

Australia has some of the most awe inspiring, magnificent natural environments on the planet. You will see living things in Australia that you can never see anywhere else in the world, even in zoos; and the geological landscapes will blow your tiny mind. Trust me, you will feel tiny indeed, staring into the vast emptiness of the Nullabour Plain, or the southern sky at night in the outback.

Incredible sunsets over places like Ayres Rock, Katherine Gorge, or any one of hundreds of beaches, will alter your perspective on life itself. This is an enormous, ancient land, who's millions of years of history reach up and snake their way into your soul. It truly is a place like no other. It gets under your skin.

Across most of Australia, billions of stars shine from an impossibly huge sky, over a dark velvet desert landscape. During the day, heartbreaking shades of blue, yellow, purple, orange and pink vie for attention against the never-ending, flat, rocky vistas.

But, just when you think the entire landscape is simply varying shades of the same arid red, you come across a gorge, or a waterhole, or even a rainforest, where life overwhelms you with lush variation.

Kookaburras Laugh

Kangaroos hop, platypuses splash, and wombats shuffle under shading gum trees. Strange, odd shaped animals and plants, that don't even look real, are commonplace, hidden in nooks and crannies. It's easy to imagine some of the plant life here looking comfortably at home on an alien planet.

The mountains and valleys shimmer in a hundred different shades of green, blue, purple, red and yellow. Just down the road, you will find a vista of flat, empty green paddocks, haphazardly divided into sections. Gum trees dot the fenceline here and there, a few cows and sheep huddled together in the shade underneath.

The Linseed of Oz

Just around the corner, you might see the surreal spectacle of bright, canary yellow linseed or sunflowers, as far as the horizon, like something out of the Wizard of Oz, which is mildly ironic.

Of course there are are cities, too, which, although not as big as London, or as old as Rome, dance to their own unique tunes, influenced by colourful melodies originating around the world. They house an eclectic population of dreamers, professionals, tradespeople, sportspeople, academics, poets, scientists, and anything else you can conceive.

The people reflect the contradictions in the countryside. We are unique, but you can recognize our origins in cultures around the world. We are spontaneous, but deeply traditional. Confident, but with an honest self-deprecation, arising partially from our convict heritage. We are hospitable, but fiercely nationalistic. Just like our wildlife: compelling and intriguing, but always potentially dangerous.

We come from everywhere. But the land has been here for millions of years.

It really is the natural landscape of Australia that exists beyond equal, though. The real essence of this place is bound in the rocks and dirt, the plants and the animals. It is easy to understand why the traditional owners believe the land was dreamed into existence.

Honestly, some of the sights I have seen here have taken my breath away. I once stood for an hour, watching the waves break on the sandstone stacks of the Twelve Apostles, while the birds wheeled overhead and the sun disappeared in a blazing spectacle so beautiful, I couldn't speak.

I have breathed in the damp, heavy air of the Dandenong Ranges, while listening to bell birds chime in the perpetually cool shade of hundreds of towering white ghost gums.

I have skinny dipped in the middle of the night, in the still, frigid waters of Port Phillip Bay, at St Kilda Beach, amid the few drunken revellers braving the chill of an early Melbourne morning.

I have lain at night, listening to the gurgling of a crystal clear river, camping under paperbark gums, their tough outer skin peeling away in long stringy strips above me.

I once stood naked at midnight, in the balmy pitch darkness of a remote deserted beach, as the waves lapped at my feet. Looking up into the heart of the Milky Way, I felt like I could touch the stars.

I know that the world is comprised of an infinite number of exquisitely arranged little miracles. I have seen some of them right outside my own back door. I know, too, that there are some amazing things on this planet, and beyond, that I will never get to see.

Sadly, it is not possible for any one person to experience everything that the cosmos has to offer. But I am so grateful that I have been able to see even a fraction of my vast home. This incredible place called Australia.