For anyone wondering about the photo in my last post, it is one of a number of sculptures at the new National Arboretum Canberra. The Arboretum is being built on a former pine plantation destroyed by bushfires in 2001 and 2003.*
The sculpture is shown below from a different angle (with my friend). It was inspired by ‘My country‘ – a poem by Dorothea Mackellar that describes Australia’s droughts, fires and flooding rains – and apparently mimics her handwriting style.
It seems appropriate that I should visit the sculpture for the first time with a friend who now lives in England as the poem was written while Dorothea was living in England, and missing her home country, Australia.
I had read about the sculpture and we drove round and round the site trying to find it. Eventually we walked up to a lookout – and spotted the sculpture on the next ridge, camouflaged against the vegetation on Black Mountain in the background.
Sometimes you need a bit of distance to be able to see things that turn out to have been right in front of you. Once I knew where it was, I realised that I can see it every day as I drive past the Arboretum on my way to work!
* More photos of the Arboretum are available at Flickr.
Photo credits: Pip Marks
Categories: Australiana, Travel
Sustainability soapbox 
Indeed an interesting sculpture and the font used seems to capture the spirit of the poem that turned away from ordered lanes of England.