Wednesday 11 February 2009

Victorian Bushfires

The tragic bushfires in Victoria have saddened everyone in the country. The appalling loss of life will lead to a lot of soul searching regarding the causes outside of the 'perfect storm' scenario. It's probably too early for that, we are all still numb from the magnitude of the disaster. But for the magnificent efforts of the CFA we can only theorise on how much worse it could have been.

I live on a bush block in the Perth hills, not unlike the countryside where this occurred, it brings at all home. Dig deep Australia.

I have had many emails and messages of concern from colleagues and friends around the world which I really appreciate. I live a long way from the fires, and the floods, though, some 2000 klm in fact so I've added a couple of illustrations showing both my location and the huge size of this magnificent sunburnt country.

A verse from Dorothea Mckellar's famous poem seems appropriate :

'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 !'

You can find the poem in full HERE
 

........... these would make great 'T' shirts   " Call that BIG .... "

2 comments:

Kelly Gannon said...

Ha Terry...I just seen this posting now...Didn't realize your country was that large.Australia is a country everyone dreams of going to...it's just a wee bit expensive to get there,my dad used to live there for a while.

Unknown said...

It's certainly a whopper of a place Kelly - always makes me smile when someone from Europe says my brother lives in Sydney - do you know him ?!
In Perth we're closer to Singapore than Sydney.