AUSTRALIA 2019
Discovery of the Northwest of this giant continent from Darwin to Broome, more than 2000 km, landscapes and Arnhemland’s pictorial rock art, desert Kimberley, aboriginal lands, fantastic colored coast cliffs, drought, wild vastness, raw nature, almost preserved …
Road trains on tarred roads, colossal distances another scale comparing to Europe!
And, more often, gravel or sandy tracks much mores laborious and dusty
Aboriginal survivors.
History of an almost complete genocide. Unique example of a civilization that has survived more than 80,000 years without ever stopping.
A societal and cultural organization, coming from the dawn of time, based on a deep universal consciousness.
Harmonious symbiosis with one of the most difficult environments on the planet. Insertion into a fascinating cosmic dimension …
That the white man, an invader blinded by his “false” values, in less than 200 years, knew neither to recognize nor to preserve.
A source of meditation for our present and future?
Reinterpretation of ancestral themes in a modern approach to Aboriginal painting with its characteristic dots
Rock paintings in Arnhemland
Endemic fauna: here the wallaby
Gorgeous birds like the bee eaters
Ants with edible abdomen
Mimicry of color and texture
Rare specimen of an endangered species because monodependent of its favorite plant
Thanks to Briget Thomson for letting me share this little wonder
From free or salty water, crocodiles are everywhere
Read headed crane
Spider design!
Multiple species of palms. They survive the fires of underwood traditionally organized to avoid bigger fires likely to destroy largest trees.
Eucalyptus, do you want it, here it is, ubiquitous trees presenting a lot subspecies
Feathery delicate water lily
Couroupita guianensi!
And, to finish our little chapter flora, his majesty the boab tree. Australia is the third world spot of this species after Africa and Madagascar. How did he get there, we always get lost in conjecture!
Along rivers and gorges …
Katherine River, Nitmiluk National Park
Photo by Philippe Vanderwee
Dawn in Arnhemland
Bungle Bungle in Purnululu National Park, UNESCO World Heritage site
Quartz sandstone of the Devonian eroded for 20 million years. Ribbed surface of horizontal bands of dark gray crust of cyanobacteria. Outstanding examples of sandstone cone karst owe their existence and uniqueness to the interaction of several geological, biological, climatic and erosional phenomena.
The description is available under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0 license
Sur le chemin de la gorge Piccaninny
Echidna Chasm
Extremely narrow gorge (barely a meter in some passages) with walls reaching up to 200 m high, magically playing with a ray of sunshine around 11 o’clock in the morning.
Reddish cliffs of Cape Leveque
At sunset, the spectacle is not so much the sun which, like everywhere, goes down on the sea but, by turning toward the opposite direction, all the beach which it ignites of its blazing
When light declines, pastels replace red blood
Then, little by little, silver and gold are appearing progressively
Until some “cosmic” darkness
Before the installation of a night “black” and so densely starred
Cliché Mark Bayfield
Flying over the coast between Cape Leveque and the “Horizontal Falls”
Fin d’épopée à Broome, charmante station balnéaire un peu rétro et aussi assez culturelle. Une plage infinie et, pour nous européens, curieusement envahie de voitures !
End of epic in Broome, charming resort, a little retro, and also quite cultural. An infinite beach and, for us European, curiously overflowing with cars!
Ephemeral sand forest
Broome Cemetery: exoticism. Surprising cohabitation of European, Aboriginal and Asian cultures.
Another curiosity: seats to stay near your dead
End of the Australian journey…
