Australia - My Place

I live alongside of the Merri Creek just before it falls into the Yarra River. After just one day of moderate rainfall, the creek springs to life and the creatures in burrows and hollows along the banks call out loudly enough to be heard at the back of my house.

Rain is so welcomed that the first drops always send me hurrying down to the creek to watch the water rise.

The Serbian Orthodox Church, underground in Coober Pedy

In early primary school, all Australian children learn the poem 'My Country' by Dorothea Mckellar. At least they did when I was at school. At one stage, during the 1970s, the poem lost popularity and was dismissed as mere patriotic propaganda. But I still like it!

Dorothea Mckellar lived a privileged life divided between the busy sophistication of the city and the simplicity of the country. The Mackellar family owned several properties in the black soil plains of Gunnedah, in the central west of New South Wales, and Dorothea was an ardent horsewoman, proud of her ability to ride side-saddle even in the bush.

Today in Anzac Park in Gunnedah stands an impressive sculpture of Dorothea, sitting sidesaddle, and gazing in the direction of her beloved "Kurrumbede", the property where she had spent so much of her youth.

Australia's most quoted poem, "My Country", was written in England at a time when Dorothea was feeling homesick. When I look at it now, I can feel her longing to be home.

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!

Australia is a sunburnt country. Truly a wide brown land.

Thanks very much for dropping by this lens. You're more than welcome to leave a note in the guest book above and, if you're a member of Squidoo, you can also rate this lens :)

It's all much appreciated, Susanna

For more pages like this, my lens collection is at Susanna's Lensography

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