Inner Australia is this red, lemon and silver space that is incomprehensibly big. Though quiet and almost treacherously still, it has some sort of vibrant energy that lies under it and hums all the while as you drive on and on and on.
My sister and I took a trip out Broken Hill way a short time ago. Being out there made me feel loyal and stoic, in a way I never really have been. There's a British flavour about my family that somehow deafens our Aussie-ness. We like books and indoor activities; we don't drink beer, or anything much alcoholic, we aren't very sport, beachy or tanned and I've barely said 'G'day' (but then who does?). This trip hasn't changed any of this - I won't be joining a cricket team anytime soon- but it allowed me to define Australia by other, far richer, more interesting and more worthy characteristics. Like the way corrugated tin post boxes, fences, sheds and all else discolour with age to be as red as the earth. Like the streams of wrinkles that form around eyes, as a result of excessive sunlight and excessive smiling. Like the mad, vigorous flies that blooming never leave you alone and drive you indoors before you get a chance to burn up.
A number of stereotypes associated with Australia proved to be true. The Kangaroos are numerous, the emus, the verandahs, the aforementioned flies, and the crazy huge spiders that have webs taller than a standing human. We went into towns that brought to life a number of picture books from my childhood, with their dunnies and lone sheds and sleepy gums (google Silverton for a prime example).
And then there were the things that I had not anticipated. Like the petrol station owner from Manchester, UK living 3 hours from any nearby town. The gluten free brownies and 8 lively tea drinks sitting on the interior of a lone road house. The endless number of kind television adverts, encouraging the support of veteran soldiers, disowned animals, children swimming and community shops. City television in comparison felt hopelessly empty and commercial.
At the beginning of the trip I felt like living so far from a bustling city would be unbearably dull; lonely. By the end, after seeing the stars littering and twinkling the night sky, waving to eager kangaroos on front lawns, and waiting for lunch while cafes shut down so employees could pay respect to those marching on Anzac day, I felt differently. The flight home gave me a large, red stretch of time to consider why I was so sorry to be leaving. My sister was understandably a major factor, considering I'd left her in that other world, alone. But I also knew part of it was that I quite liked becoming something in that dusty, sunburnt country that I'll now proudly call home.
An Appropriate Poem:
My Country
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.
Dorothea Mackellar
My sister and I took a trip out Broken Hill way a short time ago. Being out there made me feel loyal and stoic, in a way I never really have been. There's a British flavour about my family that somehow deafens our Aussie-ness. We like books and indoor activities; we don't drink beer, or anything much alcoholic, we aren't very sport, beachy or tanned and I've barely said 'G'day' (but then who does?). This trip hasn't changed any of this - I won't be joining a cricket team anytime soon- but it allowed me to define Australia by other, far richer, more interesting and more worthy characteristics. Like the way corrugated tin post boxes, fences, sheds and all else discolour with age to be as red as the earth. Like the streams of wrinkles that form around eyes, as a result of excessive sunlight and excessive smiling. Like the mad, vigorous flies that blooming never leave you alone and drive you indoors before you get a chance to burn up.
A number of stereotypes associated with Australia proved to be true. The Kangaroos are numerous, the emus, the verandahs, the aforementioned flies, and the crazy huge spiders that have webs taller than a standing human. We went into towns that brought to life a number of picture books from my childhood, with their dunnies and lone sheds and sleepy gums (google Silverton for a prime example).
And then there were the things that I had not anticipated. Like the petrol station owner from Manchester, UK living 3 hours from any nearby town. The gluten free brownies and 8 lively tea drinks sitting on the interior of a lone road house. The endless number of kind television adverts, encouraging the support of veteran soldiers, disowned animals, children swimming and community shops. City television in comparison felt hopelessly empty and commercial.
At the beginning of the trip I felt like living so far from a bustling city would be unbearably dull; lonely. By the end, after seeing the stars littering and twinkling the night sky, waving to eager kangaroos on front lawns, and waiting for lunch while cafes shut down so employees could pay respect to those marching on Anzac day, I felt differently. The flight home gave me a large, red stretch of time to consider why I was so sorry to be leaving. My sister was understandably a major factor, considering I'd left her in that other world, alone. But I also knew part of it was that I quite liked becoming something in that dusty, sunburnt country that I'll now proudly call home.
An Appropriate Poem:
My Country
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.
Dorothea Mackellar