Australia : Lensography of My Place

An Australian Story from the Dreamtime 

How the Frog made the Flood

In the Dreamtime, a terrible drought once swept across the land. The leaves of the trees turned brown and fell from the branches, the flowers drooped their heads and died, and the green grass withered as though the spirit from the barren mountain ha...

My Lovely Lazy Bay 

My home

Port Phillip Bay : Travel Victoria

Port Phillip Bay is Australia's largest tidal lagoon covering around two thousand square kilometres and having a maximum depth of over 30 metres. It's surprisingly shallow, almost an inland sea, and it has only a narrow 3 and 1/2 kilometre-wide entr...

Australian Wildlife 

Past and Present

Kookaburra : Wildlife Australia

He who laughs last, laughs longest and in the case of the Kookaburra it's true. For indeed he laughs the last, laughs the longest, and also laughs the loudest. The sound of the kookaburra is synonymous with Australia and it's been suggested that our...

Cuddly and Creepy Australians : Wildlife Australia

Have you ever cuddled a koala? They're warm, furry and they smell beautiful! Plenty of other animals can be cuddly too, or at least look cuddly, like this Tasmanian Devil who, besides being a bit on the nose, has extremely strong teeth and jaws....

Dingo, ancestor of all dog breeds : Wildlife Australia

The mother of all dingoes was most probably a single pregnant female. An intelligent animal, she trotted across the landbridge from Indonesia to Australia about 5,000 years ago and made a home for herself close to the people who inhabited the great...

Dangerous Jellyfish : Wildlife Australia

Lots of people are afraid of sharks, although the prospect of being attacked by a shark is only slightly more probable than the chances of a meteorite falling on your head. Of course, you can encourage a shark attack by disguising yourself as a seal...

Tasmanian Tiger : Wildlife Australia

The Tasmanian Tiger or, to give him his real name, the Thylacine, is generally believed to be extinct. However each year there are about a dozen unconfirmed sightings in remote areas, and several reported sets of Tiger tracks. As recently as 1995, a...

Travel Australia 

Darwin, Gateway to Asia : Travel North Australia

In the Top End of Australia, one of the last remaining wild regions of the world, is Darwin, a thriving modern city with a relaxed multicultural lifestyle in the laid- back tropics. Sitting up on a low bluff overlooking the harbour which leads out t...

Kelly Country : Travel Victoria

Up in the north east of Victoria is Kelly Country, where the bushranger, Ned Kelly, roamed and the Kelly legacy lives on. But there's more to Kelly Country than Australia's greatest folk tale - the northeast of Victoria is a favourite destination fo...

Looking for Gold : Travel Victoria

It's been worshipped, plundered, fought over and traded for thousands of years and the search for gold is as eager as ever. In the Victoria of 1851 gold was literally oozing from the ground in almost inexhaustible quantities. Wealth was everywhere,...

Ballarat and Bendigo : Travel Victoria

In 1851 a Melbourne newspaper published an article about the discovery of gold at Ballarat. It wasn't long before more gold was found nearer to Bendigo and set off a gold rush similar to the California gold rush of 1849. The population of Victoria e...

The lush and lovely Huon Valley : Travel Tasmania

Tasmania is different from the rest of Australia, it's greener, wetter and much colder. It's a tiny little place, only about the size of Ireland, and sits roughly 150 miles off the southeast corner of the mainland, directly south of Melbourne. It's...

Unusual Australia 

The Curious Town of Coober Pedy

Nothing but dust, heat, flies and more dust. No water, scarcely anything green to rest your eyes from the orange and ochre of a stony, treeless desert. It gets to 52 degrees Celsius, 126 Fahrenheit, in Summer and it's always cold at night. Out here...

Monkey Mia

I certainly can't. One Summer I spent a week enjoying incredible conversations each day with dolphins, but then everybody talks with the dolphins in Monkey Mia. The tiny resort town on the shores of Shark Bay in Western Australia is famous for its do...

Kakadu

Kakadu National Park is a living cultural landscape, inhabited continuously by Aboriginal traditional owners for more than 50,000 years. You just won't believe Kakadu until you see it. Be prepared for the majestic sandstone escarpment which sna...

Dinner Downunder 

From damper to durian

Classic Roasts : Lamb with Rosemary

I can think of nothing better than sitting down to a dish of sweet roast lamb, crisp on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. Roasting is a dry heat cooking method, with no liquid added to the meat as you cook it, so it's a perfect way, surel...

Great Australian Food

Once we lived on English food - it was all we knew. Meat, lots of meat, roast lamb, roast beef, lamb chops, grilled steak, marinated mutton and beef, lamb, lamb and more lamb. We had sausages and bacon for breakfast, lamb cutlets for lunch and at din...

Laksa : Taste of Malaysia

It's delicious, it's addictive, it's rich, slightly sweet and strongly spiced. It's laksa! Even the name is delightful. It rolls off your tongue and tempts your tastebuds. Try it. So what exactly is laksa? It's a coconutty broth with lemongrass and...

I Love Cheese!

There's something quite indulgent about the delicious labours of the ancient craft of cheese-making - the sheer enjoyment from a simple wedge of crumbly red cheddar or a sharp shaving of tart parmesan. Cheese tastes best in its country of origin and...

I love Quince!

The quince has fallen out of favour in modern times and there are quite a number of people who wouldn't recognise a quince if it were served up to them. Once it was prized throughout Western Asia and the seeds were carried, tenderly, to Europe and ac...

Good Food - Old fashioned and Frugal 

Corned Beef Heaven

How I love corned beef! It was a rare treat when I was a child for we grew up on lamb. Our diet was lamb, mutton and more lamb, broken only by fish on Fridays and poultry at Christmas. Corned beef was a dish for Summer, for lunch on the beach or pic...

How to Make Strawberry Jam

Straight from your own kitchen, home-made jam has a gorgeous fruity flavour, a clear bright colour and it's full of plain old fashioned goodness- goodness that goes beyond the taste. You've made the jam and you know exactly what's in it. It's your ja...

My Kitchen .. 

More food and cooking

I love Food : Lensography of the Kitchen

I seem to have a lot of lenses on food. Probably because I enjoy it so much. Once I cooked all the time for my growing children and grow they did .. they grew so big that they all left. Now they can cook for themselves, and I can cook just for the...

Australians 

Ned Kelly, Bushranger : Australian People

Ned Kelly is Australia's most famous bushranger, a folk hero who became a legend during his own life. The Kelly Gang rose from petty horse thieves to Australia's most wanted outlaws but Ned had the hearts of the common people. Controversy still ride...

Fred Hollows : True Humanitarian

Fred Hollows was an inspiring man. A passionate man. An opthalmologist at a prestigious Sydney hospital, he helped set up the first Aboriginal Medical Service and launched a national programme to combat eye disease in Aboriginal Australians. By the...

Banjo Paterson, Bush Poet

Banjo Paterson, the well-loved Australian poet, is known chiefly for his 'Waltzing Matilda'. It's our unofficial anthem. Small children read his poems at school and advertisers know the very real power of his verse. He vividly captured the 'feel' of...

Merry Christmas from Australia 

Christmas in Australia

Christmas is a splendid time of year in Australia. December and January are at the very height of our beach season, and we love to head for the beach and relax. The Christmas holidays stretch over the longest days of our long summers. The holidays b...