Over Australia

I was looking around in the photo collection (as you do) and I came across these photos of the Grampians in Victoria, Australia. They were taken from the window of my plane and during an average summer. After living in England for four years, what struck me was how dry and yellow everything is!

Have a look and you will see what I mean.... 

Not a lot of green. This is normal for Australia. it was not a particularly bad summer. Just normal but it is one of the things that drove me to seek out the more verdant vistas of Europe.

I think that there is a teensy haze of green in the middle ground in the photo above. Not sure how that was achieved!

Now I am sure that there will be people who will protest most strongly when I say that I find this landscape unattractive. But I do. I was born here and I went to school in Hamilton at the very foot of the Grampians and whilst the mountain range themselves are quite attractive and hold many of my fondest memories, the landscape is still ugly. I do not pine for the gum trees and the dried up paddocks just waiting to catch fire. I don't know why this is. I have looked at Australia from all different angles and in all different seasons (which mostly look the same anyway) and I just cannot see what people like about it.

Oh well, each to his own I think. I figured that rather than living there and whining every day about it and ruining everyone else's fun, I would leave and go to where I think things look better. And I have! I love Europe and I am as happy as a clam. I love our deciduous trees and I love the mountains in central Europe where there are thick forests right up the mountain side. Bliss!

Words and photos: Debbie von Grabler-Crozier 2014, 2009