I do not have many photos for you, and yet this was one of the visually most stunning days I've encountered. As I say, there were intermittent and quite thorough showers throughout the whole day, but in between the sun shone. At those times the road gleamed like dull polished metal, the sky remained a dense and introspective deep grey, and the winter trees and lush hilly horizons were vivid green in the winter sun. It really was something special! During one of these moments, near Gobur, on a winding empty road, I rounded a corner and about three hundred cockatoos rose from the field into flight across my path. They were pure white, like a mass of paddock flowers interspersed with the odd shock of pink. I entered into the midst of this vivid explosion and rode with them down the road. It was wonderful. I'm so grateful that I to experience days like this.
Below are the only photos I took that day, early on at the national park near King Lake.
I haven't even stopped at King Lake since the fires, not only because it has the aura of a scene of tragedy with its ominous 'gaps' of now neatly cleared land, but moreso because I feel sickened by the way the town has been over-run by the voyeuristic 'fire tourists' (I visited that town very frequently before the fire, and it was never the happy-snap haven it is now!). King Lake felt like a second home to me and I was deeply pained at what happened. I have to admit, however, that away from the burnt-out homes, I find the burnt forest beautiful: the stark black and green contrast of the trees, the burnt blackness softened by the gentle winter light and the cool damp air.
Axel and I...
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