Going Home

Left Batchelor today before dawn. The moon was behind me setting in the west and a  predawn sky was in the East.  Travelling great distances brings to mind how varied is the landscape. At Katherine, I had left the Cycads and Pandanus palms and the burnt landscape. As I headed through the hills and jump ups, I began to notice how every little roadside stop with a roadhouse had a creek nearby and the rest areas are always presaged by a jump up from which a creek runs. So there is water, and the wayside stop is where the water is - Barrow Creek, Tenant Creek, Tea tree and Wycliffe Wells. Stayed at Banka Banka station last night and in the morning was relieved to be back in spinifex country and the glorious red dirt. Somehow this landscape seems softer than the country around Darwin and Batchelor.

 Pre Dawn leaving Batchelor

Adelaide River Cemetry for the war dead. My relative Bernie who died of appendicitis not the Darwin raids.

 This lonely grave is an unknown soldier

These graves are aboriginal men who died in a 1943 raid

 The Vietnam soldier who was brought home and buried here just this year.

 The beautiful gate to the memorial

 Full moon at Banka Banka Station on my way south.

 The long stretch to the deep freeze hazy in the heat

 The beautiful sky and the tree that sheltered my lunchtime outside of Alice Springs