Did I just hear that?
We are driving in the Australian Outback on a summer’s day, when the temperature is nearing 40 (that’s Celsius) and even though the air-con is on, the van windows offer no protection from the sun that has burnt the skin of an entire country (at least according to the title of that Bill Bryson book).
We are in the southwestern part of a harsh land. Once you get past the cosmopolitan cities of Sydney and Melbourne and made-for-TV moments brought to you by Oprah, there are vast deserts of red dirt and scrub and oceans in a near constant state of riptide and shark sightings.
As we drive along, we are well aware that up in the northeast right now floods are washing vehicles like ours down raging water roadways, Jeeps and Utes smash into trees and strip malls, as people swim for their lives.
The satellite TV footage from Queensland, in and around Brisbane, a city with a population about the same as Houston, Texas, is frightening to watch. Yet every time we pull into a roadhouse for petrol and a cappuccino (Aussies don’t do automatic drip), we can’t look away from the screen mounted on the wall among the tacky stubby holders and baseball caps for sale commemorating our recent crossing of the Nullarbor Plain.
Queensland is drowning. (Read the rest at OpenSalon.com)
Kathy Drasky regularly writes about online culture. Her marketing and communications work with the ANZA Technology Network, Advance Global Australians and with various Australians and Australian enterprises has led to at least a dozen trips Down Under.
An accomplished digital photographer, her photos have appeared in 7×7 Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and Google Schmap.
