Monday, February 25, 2019

Sunset & Sea-Nostalgia




We're settling in to our new home in the bush - learning to enjoy the wide spaces, vast sky and sun-bleached landscape. The kids are back at school and kindy and I finally have time to look back over the photos of our busy Summer and sigh and hum. 

These ones are from an evening fishing over on the Pumicestone Passage side of Bribie Island. The two littlest ones ran and fished and ran and lolled in the shadows and ran while my Beloved, his cousin and a friend from way back in high school fed the fish fished. The girls loved helping with the yabby hunting. but their splashing and shallow-loading probably didn't help with the fishing. 
























Thursday, February 21, 2019

Inland



So. We've moved to the bush. We're now two and a half hours from the sea and three and a half hours from Brisbane. We're finally (almost) stopping to catch our breath after all the packing, moving, travel and unpacking.
The days are hot and the land is dry. The colours are faded golds and browns and muted greens. The sky is high and generally cloudless.
I have found if I don't get my washing on the line by 7am I need to put on a sunhat, sunscreen and sunglasses to get it out. This is not an exaggeration. I tend to wait till evening and leave it out over night. It's a great time to admire the amazing stars and the cool night breezes.
Kangaroos bound by our back fence every day and cows stop to visit. Our first days were enlivened by a nest of tree snake babies appearing in the laundry, garage, over the screen of the front door and in the palm at the front of the house. Our clever cats alerted us nearly every time but until I had a proper ID on the type of snake, getting them out of the house and into nearby bush was a nerve wracking procedure. My Beloved - who arrived a week after the kids and I - had all sorts of helpful phone advice. "Could be an inland taipan, maybe death adder." So reassuring.
We are starting to explore - loading the kids in the car I picked up My Beloved from work one night and we headed out to the local dam for some fishing.
I am the queen of kangaroos and spot five on the way. The kids are already over them.
We arrive just as the sun sets - the light still warm and golden, the breeze delightful. The dam is very empty. It's skirted by a big swathe of pitted dirt where the water used to reach.
The kids don't notice and run and play and throw stones into the shallows.
We don't catch any fish - but have plans to return with live bait and different yada-yada fishings stuffs.
More importantly dozens of curious turtles come to observe us - poking their little heads above the water to inspect if we are food/bring food, watching for a moment and then submersing again.
We're thinking of heading home when the moon rises over the far side of the bank, slowly appearing behind the dark silhouettes of the gums. At first I thought it was some ultra bright headlights or something from a dance party. But no - a large and brilliant full moon. Appearing larger than it will all year. I take dozens of photos but none capture it's size, clarity, colour, brilliance. (I make notes to myself about tripods, lenses - the stars and moon out here deserve them. Because they're worth it.)
We're slowly settling in - to the sense of space, to the differences. I am hanging out for my first bill to arrive so I can get a library card. But everything is billed online now. (Luckily, I still have a card with my last library system. Ebooks are amazing. But I still want a local card.)

 My sweet savage, telling me she needs to be carried to the others because - prickles. 

 A rare photo of the four together. 

 Where the water used to be. 

 Running over where-the-water-used-to-be.

 And again - why walk when you can run? 



 Catch of the day. 


Moonrise