New England (New South Wales)

Warrumbungles

We drove through the ancient volcanic landscape of the Warrumbungles and enjoyed the scenery but it was too hot to do a proper hike and see it up close.  We'll have to come here again with more time to do it justice.  

Local wildlife

This lizard gave us a big fright!

Galah

Friendly Emus

We met these very friendly and curious Emus in a field near the Warrumbungles.

Gunnedah

Gunnedah is marketed as the Koala capital of Australia, supposedly abounding in these cute little furry critters.  But despite searching high and low, including a very hot morning hike in the local nature reserve, we didn't see any. What a pity!

Gunnedah is also famous for being the inspiration for Dorothy Mackellar's iconic Australian poem "My Country."  She spent time on her family's farm in the Gunnedah district and wrote the poem in England when she was 19 and feeling homesick for Australia.  I have included the poem at the bottom of this post.  Dani had to memorise the whole poem at school and she read it out to me in the car as we drove.  What a beaut is is.

Statue of Dorothy Mackellar, author of "My Country"

View of the town from the local hill.

It's all a conspiracy!

My Country  (by Dorothy Mackellar)

The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes.

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running in your veins,

Strong love of grey-blue distance

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country, 

A land of sweeping plains, 

Of ragged mountain ranges, 

Of droughts and flooding rains. 

I love her far horizons, 

I love her jewel-sea, 

Her beauty and her terror 

The wide brown land for me! 

The stark white ring-barked forests, 

All tragic to the moon, 

The sapphire-misted mountains, 

The hot gold hush of noon, 

Green tangle of the brushes 

Where lithe lianas coil, 

And orchids deck the tree-tops, 

And ferns the warm dark soil. 

Core of my heart, my country! 

Her pitiless blue sky, 

When, sick at heart, around us 

We see the cattle die 

But then the grey clouds gather, 

And we can bless again 

The drumming of an army, 

The steady soaking rain. 

Core of my heart, my country! 

Land of the rainbow gold, 

For flood and fire and famine 

She pays us back threefold. 

Over the thirsty paddocks, 

Watch, after many days, 

The filmy veil of greenness 

That thickens as we gaze ... 

An opal-hearted country, 

A wilful, lavish land 

All you who have not loved her, 

You will not understand 

though Earth holds many splendours, 

Wherever I may die, 

I know to what brown country 

My homing thoughts will fly. 

Next stop
Dubbo Zoo


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