Tag: Western Australia
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HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE
Longest night … shortest day … take your pick. I watched from my study this evening as the sun dipped into a bank of clouds and then disappeared into the Indian Ocean. Mother Nature signalled the sun’s maximum tilt away from the Sun with a spectacular display of colour. It’s a bittersweet day, which is […]
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SURF’S UP AT LEEUWIN-NATURALISTE NATIONAL PARK
July is supposed to be cold and rainy, but we’re seeing the contrary this winter. The forecast promised a sunny day, so Joseph, Padma and I drove south for a couple of hours till we reached the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park. The Indian Ocean was at its finest and we watched bottlenose dolphins and later humans […]
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A BLANK CALENDAR … SO A BEACH WALK
With the exception of a couple routine doctor appointments, a visit by a screen door repairer, and some Aussie visitors in August, I’ve got nothing on my calendar for the rest of my life. No travel plans, no meetings, no weddings, no holidays, no social engagements. Nada. Nothing. Zippo. I like that. Particularly since Padma […]
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THE WRITER’S DEN
I had a good job in 1984 at an agricultural research center called CATIE in Costa Rica. I was tasked with writing a complete textbook on agroforestry. It would have taken a year, maybe two. It was a secure job at a very reputable international center. I quit the job after about five months. I […]
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IT’S FLOWER TIME
When Padma and I planned our two-month Northern Hemisphere Friends and Family tour, I made sure we’d be back in time for the Western Australia wildflower show. As I discovered last season, Western Australia is a biodiversity hotspot for its flora. The first wildflowers start blooming in July and reach a climax in September … […]
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FITZGERALD RIVER NATIONAL PARK
Fitzgerald River National Park is one of Western Australia’s largest parks but only comprises 0.13% of the State’s total area. Yet 20% of the State’s flora can be found in the park. It’s a ridiculously diverse region of the State where you can find 1800 species of flowering plants. About 60 of those species are […]
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STIRLING RANGE NATIONAL PARK
DAY 4: MT HASSELL I follow a Facebook group of the Wildflower Society of Western Australia and I have been seeing a lot of posts of gorgeous photos from the Stirling Range. As a newcomer here, I had never heard of the place. I Googled it and learned that it’s in the southwest of Western […]
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BRAIN FOG
Photo: Drosera porrecta. A species of sundew without a common name. Endemic to Western Australia. Carnivorous. Has traps consisting of sticky-glandular, flypaper-like leaves. Hard to find. Will have a white flower later in the year. Once upon a time I was a naturalist in the state and national parks of the United States. I would […]
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THE LARGEST TEMPERATE FOREST ON EARTH
On the last hour of the last day of our double crossing of the Nullarbor Plain, Padma and I drove real slowly. We had no hurry to reach the dumpy motel room in Norseman that awaited us. The sun was getting low in the sky when we encountered a significant change in landscape. The scrubby, […]
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