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It’s not climate change but people change that’s turning our National Parks & Nature Reserves into giant bonfires. Colonisation removed the old fire-stick farmers & the conservation movement removed the new conventional farmers/ graziers. Last week lightning lit up the Narran lakes nature reserve and 22,000 hectares was burnt before rain eventually put the fire […]
As the smoke clears after the recent referendum, the losers lapse into blame shifting mode similar to what followed the public republic rejection a generation ago. Most people default to the ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it’ approach to constitutional change despite the statistics showing the system is broke for some of us. The […]
Ive been photographing & uploading tree pics to my archives since 2016 so Ive learnt a bit about PERSPECTIVE. The angle & the lighting are important too but in order to show the tree’s true size you need something beside it. Mostly I muster paddocks at home with a few kelpies who may be […]
Ive been reading about Awe hunting this week – I used to think it meant chasing wild electrical storms, hang gliding or bungee jumping off bridges. Apparently, there is a more sedate version where you look for the amazing in the everyday. Julia Baird wrote this about a recent Compass episode on ABC NEWS STORY […]
Ive been back to Broken hill recently for Rick Ball’s new exhibition at the regional gallery in Argent St. I’m a big fan of Rick’s work – he’s an artist’s artist in many ways but also an educator & animated storyteller. Rick catches the basic components & colour of the desert while creating the illusion […]
Its been a while since I wrote about the CMTs here but Ive been learning about their cultural significance from those who know best. My friend Priscilla Reid-Loynes, Gomilaroi/ Yuwaalaraay women, education consultant and cultural creative, has been back in Walgett for a couple of weeks. We’ve been hanging out with the trees, sharing […]
Ive been in email conversation with a lady from Cohuna – North Victoria – who has sent me some photos of wonderful scarred trees from a creek near the Kow Swamp (one of the largest aboriginal burial grounds in the southern hemisphere). The black box CMTs were killed by flood irrigation & rising […]
Those of you have been reading these blogs for a long time will remember my “Ringtree” phase before I became TinT obsessed. Ive found ringtrees fashioned out of coolabah, blackbox, bimblebox, whitewood, rosewood, wild orange (bumble) leopardwood & belah. All of the cultural rings here west of Walgett are related to water – good water […]
(From Death of a river guide – Richard Flanagan 1995) I was down in Sydney last week & got out to the Royal Botanical Gardens & Centennial Park. There were plenty of colourful & ethereal epiphytes on trees & palms at the RBG but most of them were tied in position. You can see below […]
There is a scrub tree here that grows on the floodplains known as Mirrii or leafless cherry/ ballart. Its scientific name is Exocarpus aphyllus and it’s a root parasite on the coolabah mainly, but other eucalypts as well. The Mirrii is used to “make a decoction to treat sores & colds. This plant was also […]