Coastal Australia V Inland Australia ( part 1 )

So what will it be ? The beach or the bush ? Sand, sun, surf, beach babes, bikinis, cyclones, east coast lows, torrential rains, bland oceanic warm temperate and subtropical climes V heat, cold, dust, flies, droughts, fires floods, frosts, snow in the mountains, outback men, outback women tougher than the men....
A poem by Dorethea MacKellar, 'My Country'

Lyrics,
"The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes.

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins,

Strong love of grey-blue distance

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.



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!



A stark white ring-barked forest

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold hush of noon.

Green tangle of the brushes,

Where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops

And ferns the warm dark soil.



Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When sick at heart, around us,

We see the cattle die -

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady, soaking rain.



Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the Rainbow Gold,

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold -

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.



An opal-hearted country,

A wilful, lavish land -

All you who have not loved her,

You will not understand -

Though earth holds many splendours,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

Caloundra, Sunshine Coast, South East Queensland.


Charleville, outback Queensland, about 750 klm inland from Brisbane. I've had a few beers in this pub.



Bowen, North Queensland


Winton, North Western Queensland outback town ( Aussie western, 'The Proposition' filmed here )



Kiama, NSW


Hay, NSW, picturesque south western Riverina.....er... no its not, I just made that up.....miles and miles of nothing !



Kempsey, NSW


Wilcannia, outback NSW. Tough country on the banks of the Darling River. And has the dubious honour of a 50c in Jan 1939 although not digitised on BOM site.



Lakes Entrance, VIC


Rutherglen, Northern VIC, just south of the Murray River. Had a few beers in this pub, too.....



Portland, VIC


Ouyen, Mallee Country, Northern VIC, hardscrabble wheet/sheep farmlands. Did I mention beer in the pub ?



Jervis Bay ACT ( a coastal enclave of the Australian Capitol Territory )


Tuggerenong ACT, a suburb of Canberra