Sulfur-crested Cockatoos can’t be trusted to keep secrets they gossip too much, Kangaroos tend to keep their own counsel,, while Australian ravens are good with most of the sheep languages being fluent speakers of Border  Leicester and Corriedale. Galahs are everybody’s friend, despite the ceaseless antics; hanging upside down in trees, screeching out, making low-flying passes. It’s hard to be angry with such a crazy happy bird.

All the country animals seem to know which way we’re traveling before we do!

We lumber along puddled and pot-holed farmers’ roads that smell like sour pumpernickel, lined with ancient tortured twisted river gums that scream out “See my pain” Limbs cast aside and left to rot at their feet.
The bush telegraph taps out a Morse code beat as dust particles spark and crackle around the electricity condensers in the rising heat and humidity.

I’m drawn into the dream-like qualities of the Australian landscape that so seduced the lyrical poets of colonial times. Cattle stand spaced out perfectly as if they were an installation art piece, adding a pronounced architectural aspect to the faded homesteads.

The other night I dreamt I was cycling the edge of Australia, along the Bunda cliffs on the Nullarbor Plain. Out here we are on the edge of Australia all the time. Every day we cycle and surrender to this ancient land wrapped in its embrace.

The wind, the rain, the soil and the sun. Those birds, these trees. We are all that we are immersed in, not separate at all.