The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. … Continue reading THE FOREST OF STONE
Tag: Writing
NORTHERN LIGHT
I’ll never let you go If you promise not to fade away… – Muse, Starlight Dusk on The Esplanade. As the evening hubbub of Cairns comes alive, I sit at a corner table at the Coast Roast… Continue reading NORTHERN LIGHT
Moonlight Encounter
The inlets and coves, slotted into the coastline like notches on a sailor’s knife handle… I was jumped on by a possum at Curio Bay. Now that’s not a sentence you’ll read very often. It was just after ten o’clock at night and I was standing on a headland overlooking the bay, with surf booming… Continue reading Moonlight Encounter
Corner Country
“I thought of all the songs I’d sung About this Outback track, And that is how this vision came to me…” – Slim Dusty, Along the Road of Song. Beyond Bourke, a one-dog-town on the banks of the Darling River in Western New South Wales, the single lane bitumen road gives way to a rutted outback… Continue reading Corner Country
Ghosts of Cooper Creek
I live and breathe the silences and dust where no man reigns… – Cold Chisel, Wild Colonial Boy Dawn at Cooper Creek. Day begins early out here in the far north-east corner of South Australia. Long before first light seeps into the sky, the birds are awake: screeching and wailing and… Continue reading Ghosts of Cooper Creek
A WALK ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS
Hong Kong has a secret alter ego. Beyond Stanley – a trendy seaside suburb on a peninsula suspended from the south coast of Hong Kong Island – the Wilson Trail climbs steeply up the flank of Ma Kong Shan. A cool breeze blows in from the South China Sea, rustling through the leaves of the… Continue reading A WALK ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS
Wide Awake in Dreamland
Out here nothing changes, not in a hurry anyway. You feel the endlessness, running on the light of day… – Goanna, Solid Rock Before the Dreamtime there was nothing. The Earth was flat and lifeless; no stars glittered in the sky. The universe was dark and silent. … Continue reading Wide Awake in Dreamland
The Light Horse
With cold steel bayonets gleaming, in sodden seas of blood They raced towards the stronghold, all in a crimson flood, Such maddening surge of horses, such tumult and such roar The Wells of old Beersheba had never seen before … … Continue reading The Light Horse
The House of Blakiston
I come from Geraldine. Someone had to. My hometown, Geraldine, on New Zealand’s South Island, doesn’t have any notable citizens. We can’t lay claim to being the birthplace of a great politician, or an eminent scientist, or even some famous deviant, serial killer or chef. The closest thing Geraldine has to a celebrity is Jordan… Continue reading The House of Blakiston
The City of Light
“I dig my toes into the sand; The ocean looks like a thousand diamonds, strewn across a blue blanket…” – Incubus, Wish You Were Here Dawn on Tahunanui Back Beach. At this hour, the beach is empty: a strand of grey sand adorned with a tide-wrack of driftwood. Off to the west, the heaped blue… Continue reading The City of Light