Where the wild things are

Featured in

  • Published 20080808
  • ISBN: 9780733322839
  • Extent: 296 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm)

WHEN WE WERE moving from Sydney to Brisbane this year, people suggested different things I’d need to get used to: hot, sticky summers; the absence of city beaches; and the city’s baseline fauna, which apparently ran to mighty flying cockroaches and massive spiders.

Driving north, I traced the line of the Pacific Highway in our map book, registering the dot points of towns as they passed. The red callistemon in my beachside street gave way to the rough-barked apple, Angophora floribunda, of Les Murray’s country above Buladelah, which gave way to luminous spots of delicate purple-blue lotus in creeks and ponds further north again. And I watched the colours and shapes of the landscape, close up and far off, morph and change as we drove through a thousand kilometres of Australia’s complex mosaic of space.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

More from this edition

Moonlight reflections

EssayThe case against the former premier was famously abandoned in 1991 when a jury split – with one of two dissenters a member of the Young Nationals. The lack of resolution left open one of the biggest questions: was Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen a crook? Queenslanders remained divided on the great divider. Ask and they will tell you. Joh was a villain; Joh was a martyr.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.