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Colours Of The Outback - Joan Mathewson
Some years back I flew into Australia during daylight hours. I looked down and knew this was my country.
The coastline was drawn with a golden pen. Like an aboriginal painting, the yellow ochres, burnt siennas and rich creams unfolded. A giant black tree was drawn – drawn with dark lines of water – followed by something like a large thunder egg sliced in two and flattened. Blue-green salt lakes appeared and clumps of dark trees like stubble on a sunburnt face.
As we flew over Broken Hill, I remembered my first trip to Tibooburra on a painting trip in 1988. The group soon found interesting things to paint. The sandstone courthouse, the two old hotels and the rock-strewn landscape.
I did little painting, however. I had found my special place. Sitting on a sun-warmed rock, high on a hill, I could see for miles in all directions. The landscape spread out beneath me; the red soil, the blue bushes, the creek beds with rain-washed pebbles, the black trunks of the mulgas.
In the distance were the mesas – long, flat-topped hills touched with chocolate and violet.
Wildflowers pushed their way through rock crevices. Without moving from my spot, I could reach out and touch yellow, pink and white daisies, ruby dock and the incredible red and black Sturt’s Desert Pea. Wedgetailed eagles flew high in the sky.
Since then, I have spent many days in outback Australia, including three months at Peak Hill in the heart of the Murchison gold fields in Western Australia. I marvelled at the hundreds in years gone by who had searched for gold in this wild, remote area, leaving behind rusted relics of their stay.
I found some splendid breakaway country. These towering rocky outcrops are spectacular in shades of rusty red and burnt orange sandstone. The stones underfoot show colours of navy blue, plum, yellow and orange.
Later I discovered the wide rivers of the Northern Territory and Queensland.
How can I explain the effect of close encounters with brolgas, jabirus and crocodiles? The termite mounds, the weird boab trees?
Or a flight over the Bungle Bungles and Lake Argyle? The Oodnadatta Track? Bell Gorge on the Gibb River Road, where you need four wheel drives to climb the steep cliff? The sunsets, the colours of the deserts?
The outback has captured my heart and made me a prisoner for life.
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Some years back I flew into Australia during daylight hours. I looked down and knew this was my country.
The coastline was drawn with a golden pen. Like an aboriginal painting, the yellow ochres, burnt siennas and rich creams unfolded. A giant black tree was drawn – drawn with dark lines of water – followed by something like a large thunder egg sliced in two and flattened. Blue-green salt lakes appeared and clumps of dark trees like stubble on a sunburnt face.
As we flew over Broken Hill, I remembered my first trip to Tibooburra on a painting trip in 1988. The group soon found interesting things to paint. The sandstone courthouse, the two old hotels and the rock-strewn landscape.
I did little painting, however. I had found my special place. Sitting on a sun-warmed rock, high on a hill, I could see for miles in all directions. The landscape spread out beneath me; the red soil, the blue bushes, the creek beds with rain-washed pebbles, the black trunks of the mulgas.
In the distance were the mesas – long, flat-topped hills touched with chocolate and violet.
Wildflowers pushed their way through rock crevices. Without moving from my spot, I could reach out and touch yellow, pink and white daisies, ruby dock and the incredible red and black Sturt’s Desert Pea. Wedgetailed eagles flew high in the sky.
Since then, I have spent many days in outback Australia, including three months at Peak Hill in the heart of the Murchison gold fields in Western Australia. I marvelled at the hundreds in years gone by who had searched for gold in this wild, remote area, leaving behind rusted relics of their stay.
I found some splendid breakaway country. These towering rocky outcrops are spectacular in shades of rusty red and burnt orange sandstone. The stones underfoot show colours of navy blue, plum, yellow and orange.
Later I discovered the wide rivers of the Northern Territory and Queensland.
How can I explain the effect of close encounters with brolgas, jabirus and crocodiles? The termite mounds, the weird boab trees?
Or a flight over the Bungle Bungles and Lake Argyle? The Oodnadatta Track? Bell Gorge on the Gibb River Road, where you need four wheel drives to climb the steep cliff? The sunsets, the colours of the deserts?
The outback has captured my heart and made me a prisoner for life.
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