My Country

“I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.”

The famous lines from Dorothea Mackellar’s poem “My Country” often runs through my head as I drive around the property.  We do not have any mountain ranges here, but we do have plenty of sweeping plains. 

The strange thing at the moment we seem to have flooding rains and droughts at the same time.  Below is a photo taken at the northern end of the property in the last few days showing a few calves enjoying the green grass. 

 

Incredibly the photo below was taken just one day later showing a fire which had started as a result of a lightning strike.  This was taken towards the southern end of the property where obviously much less rainfall had been received. 

 

Flooding rains are a part of the landscape up here – between Broome and Exmouth in Western Australia is the most cyclone prone coastline in Australia.  Unfortunately droughts are also part of the scene up here as they are for all of Australia.  However, It is very unusual to have both events seemingly occurring at the same time.