Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
At 9.03 am we were walking uphill, but easily.
Less than half an hour later, we would be inside Wilpena Pound.
The pictured “grass trees” are neither grasses nor trees.
Xanthorrhoea is an Australian endemic genius of circa 30 species of flowering succulents.
Comments closedOn 19 July the world lost one of its most eloquent instrumentalists..
Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate was 58; he died after a short illness.
He was not the only great kora player, but he was, unquestionably, the kora’s most prominent and most influential exponent; Toumani Diabate turned it into a “concert” instrument.
At age 22 he recorded Kaira – the world’s first absolutely solo kora album.
(oft-misdescribed as an African “harp”, the kora is in fact a harp-lute)
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Conifers and eucalypts both tend to be domineering – they are particularly adept at excluding other kinds of trees.
In the Flinders Ranges, however, one sometimes sees “pines” and “gum trees” thriving, surprisingly near to each other.
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At 8.56 am we were just beginning to walk away from Wilpena Creek, and uphill, towards the “lip” of the actual Wilpena Pound.
As is true of many Eucalyptus species, river red gums are forever-engaged in a cycle of growing and shedding their bark and leaves.
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Clearly evident: this tree is no youngster, it has not merely seen fire and rain, and is still alive, probably some centuries on from the relevant seed’s germination.
Commonly known as the river red gum, Eucalyptus camaldulensis is the most widely-distributed of any eucalyptus species; it is almost-proverbially hardy/“enduring”.
River red gums are the “gum tree” best-beloved by Australian members of Homo sapiens.
In 21st century Australia, this “iconic” species is in big trouble.
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Shortly before we forsook Wilpena Creek, and started to walk uphill (and thence into Wilpena Pound) we encountered the pictured, “permanent” waterhole.
Such places are particularly precious in regions where creeks variously rise, rage, flood, trickle, then cease to flow at all – visibly, at least – for unpredictable periods, sometimes many months…
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This post’s photo was taken just three minutes after the second one in this series’ first post.
By 8.24 am, the ridge tops above Wilpena Creek were no longer mist-shrouded.
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All photos in this series were taken on 05 June 2023.
All locations were within a morning loop-walking distance of Wilpena Resort, or a deal less than one hour’s driving distance from Wilpena Pound.
The Flinders Ranges region is a unique and beautiful part of Australia.
Winter is the best time to go there, and most of it is less than a full day’s drive away from Adelaide.
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Even as a spectacularly distorted reflection on the facade of another, lower and more “glassy” edifice, St Martins Tower is unmistakably itself.
Since we moved to Perth in 1983 many different tenants have “badged” St Martins Tower; as you can see in lower right hand quarter of the above photo, the current logo is that of ICBC – a Chinese bank.
From 1978 to 1988 St Martins Tower (140 metres) was Perth tallest building.
In the much more crowded and taller 2024 skyline, it is #10.
The #1 ranking, however, has remained unchanged for 32 years; Central Park (249 metres) still looks down on all other WA rooftops.
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Architecturally speaking, much of what stands tall in Perth is depressingly typical of what stands tall in just about every other substantial city on “our” planet.
Most post-1960 “towers” are both bland and brutal.
However, Perth’s unusually intense winter light can work “magic”, when combined with the happy fact that “vertical”, “flat” glass panes are hardly ever truly vertical or truly flat.
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