This morning, I ran in the dimness before good light, the pavement damp from rain, the air thick with humidity, the Australian dawn chorus strong with voices of figbirds, oriole, magpies, and lorikeets. Black flying foxes returning to their daytime roosts after a night of feeding on fruit and nectar spread broad-winged silhouettes against blue night creeping into day.  A half hour later, I had a clear view of billowing purple and white clouds mounded above the horizon in all directions – testaments to the rain – yet pale, bald blue sky gleamed overhead.

As I ran, I pondered the fact that today is the spring or vernal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, a time of lengthening days and increasing temperatures leading to the steamy climax of the summer solstice in late December and the onset of the Wet. In my Canadian homeland half way around the world, the opposite is true, this day of equal day and night being there the autumnal equinox, a time (in Nova Scotia) of deliciously warm days hearkening back to summer and frosty nights leaning toward the onset of winter. Flames of leaf colour will have begun flickering on in valleys and on hills until, in a few weeks time, the entire landscape of Nova Scotia will be aflame with the beauty of autumn leaves. Those will fall, covering yards, roadsides, and hiking trails in crunchy carpets. Here in Townsville, street tree leaves that fell during previous weeks of the nominally dry season now lay strewn on the verges of the golf course, as though in some mix-up combining the features of September equinoxes on both halves of the globe.

Of course, Australia’s northern tropical latitudes really only experience two seasons,  the Wet and the Dry, so I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to describe today’s equinox as a spring equinox here in Townsville. However, the southern temperate latitudes of Australia experience four distinct seasons, so the term should fit there. Tasmania in late March bore an incredibly strong resemblance to southern Canada in autumn, its Midlands golden with crops and hay, its night temperatures falling to brisk levels.

Three months from now, Vilis and I will be on a plane en route to North America and the Canadian winter diving into its coldest depths after the winter solstice, when the Wet may be on in full force here. So, where are we at in our Australian adventure?

During the past three months, we (and sometimes our son Janis) have explored more broadly within the huge state of Queensland, travelling to Bundaberg in the south and checking out Eungella National Park in early July, exploring the lava tubes and other volcanic features at Undara Volcanic National Park later in that month, and becoming better acquainted with Bowling Green Bay and Paluma Range National Parks closer to home. We hiked and attempted snorkelling on Magnetic Island in early August, catching there our first glimpses of fringing coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. We searched for and found cassowaries in the Mission Beach/Etty Bay area, and looked out over the vast sugarcane plantations of Burdekin Shire from the summit of Mount Inkerman. In early September, we sought and observed emus near Burdekin Dam Falls, and in mid-September tackled the most physically demanding excursion of our year in Australia – backpacking the Thorsborne Trail on Hinchinbrook Island.

Now, as we slide into the last quarter of our stay in Oz, we’re on the brink of a trip to Alice Springs and the desert – a whole different ballgame from anything I’ve seen to date on this continent. I’m looking forward to new landscapes and birds, and to catching a glimpse of the red heart of this nation. Beyond that, we have one more area of spectacular biological diversity to visit back here in Queensland – the ancient Daintree rainforest and Great Barrier Reef near Cairns. A conference will take us to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory in early December, and soon after, we’ll bid adieu to Australia. As I look back over the nine months we’ve spent exploring this country and simply living in a dry tropics city, I feel I’ve gained some insight into the Aussie persona, and I know I’ve become familiar with a lot of Australian birds. My goal for our year in Australia was to do three things: lots of hiking, lots of birding, and lots of writing. So far, I’ve hit the mark on all three.