Australia’s Grass Trees

With snow blanketing our Nova Scotia yard and nearby meadows and woods, I decided to devote today’s post to an icon of Australian vegetation, the grass tree. During our year in Oz, Vilis and I f...

Farewell to Oz

At 4:30 a.m., the tropical summer night featured stars sprinkled among wispy clouds tinted orange by Townsville’s lights, bush stone-curlews wailing, spangled drongoes squeaking, and black flying fo...

Reflections on A Year in Australia

Damp, clinging Townsvillian heat swirled around my limbs as I ran one last Australian run in the brightening light before dawn. Paths within the Ross River Parkway lay wet and pasted with flowers and ...

Aussie Water Dragons

After a brief, pre-dawn greeting of the tropical day in Townsville, I jumped into focused, highspeed packing and house cleaning in preparation for Vilis’s and my departure from Australia four da...