A Day at JCU

In mid-morning, I cycled to James Cook University, with heat radiating off the bitumen path in the Ross River Parkway and the river itself throwing me rich, wet smells. At the uni, I wandered the camp...

Notes on Idalia and Townsville’s Homeless

Two things surprised me this morning while cycling in the parkway. The first was a tree snake that fell out of a tree and flopped onto the grass right beside me in Idalia. The second was a homeless ma...

Australia: One Competitive Country

In the darkness of 5:40 a.m., the air’s damp warmth felt too close, too thick. Haunting, broken calls of bush stone-curlews rang out over the sodden golf course, and in the distance, laughing kookab...

From Aplins Weir, Townsville

While the east coast of Australia awaited the arrival of the tsunami generated by yesterday’s Chilean mega-earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale, Vilis and I cycled to Aplins Weir and beyond...