But there is no water ...

So often, hiking in Australia, I look down and think I see water.

But there is no water.  This is just rock remembering water.

And here, there's nothing else for the land to remember.  No quakes or eruptions.  Volcanic NZ has islands that are only 600 years old, but Australia is the same old block that's been drifting along for millions of years.  The drama of the Great Dividing Range is not about uplift, but rather an immensely gradual wearing away, by water rarely seen, and everywhere remembered.

 

Comments

[Chris Clarke]

"rock remembering water"

I love that.

[Miss Bliss]

Yes...that is a lovely line and a lovely photo as well.

[David Tiley]

Yes - a lovely line.

The drama of this continent is the drama of life unfolding, from stromatolites to us.

Living ever more precariously on less and less in subtle ways - less metals, less nitrogen, less friable ground - as the great wash and slap of changing climate forms and reforms its surfaces, its sands and its edges.

Formed not of rock but of water. You photographed the fundamental drama, the wisdom in everything that evolved here.

And fire, of course. Water and fire.