Outback Where?

With all the recent focus on the family's move to Queensland - longer term readers might be wondering what has happened about my ORIGINAL purpose of this blog - to talk outback issues.

Sorry - I have been off topic, and I will get back there from time to time, but right at the moment I am definitely in a different world. Just how different is brought home almost every moment when I am out and about. One of the notable features of life since moving to Brisbane has been the almost constant view of...forest. When we finally get into our new home - we will have forest views off the balcony. For the moment we don't - our views are limited to the backs of other houses, but that's only temporary. The drive to work - 35 km across the suburbs includes a section through the Greenbank Military Reserve - thick with forest. A little further on, as you cross the Brisbane River there is again forest all around. Not much later, the road passes through the Brisbane Forest Park - which is well named. When I finally arrive at work, I find I am responsible for a fairly large section of land with some lovely trees out the front, and out the back is a bush reserve. In reality, I don't think I have ever been more confronted by forest on a daily basis, and while these are for the most part not extensive areas of land, they are certainly beautifully untouched. In the cases of our little bush reserve at work and the forest around the River, they are quite luxuriant; bordering on sub-tropical. The other day, I explored an alternative route home across the back of Mount Cootha - a little further but less traffic. It was not any faster, mind you, because I had swapped freeway for a hilly track... but you should have seen the forest that route took me through! Amazing.

So - while I have swapped one suburban experience for another, there is no doubt that this is quite different to Melbourne in respect of the vegetation you see. Literally every tree I saw on the drive from work to the office in Melbourne was selected and cultivated - and very few represented species from the natural bush that once covered the area. Particularly around home, even when there were some sections of natural bush preserved, it was typically tea-tree, coastal banksias and other scrubby species. Not what you would call forest! My own yard in Melbourne had a disproportionate number of trees for its size - but virtually none of them were native to Victoria. Here, I seem to be near constantly surrounded by extensive patches of natural, impressive green forest.

All of which means - the outback is far away. Of course, if you drive off to the west, you start to find yourself in some pretty remote country before a whole long time, but it is really hard to make the mental leap from here. When I stop and think about it, I miss it. Mostly I have been too busy to stop and think, but right now, I do.

Of course, the outback will wait for me - it always does. One of the things I love is that when you go back to the outback, its still there. Just like before. Pretty much like it was 200 years ago, or 2,000 years ago. So - I'll get there. But I suspect I have a few things to do first. There is a fair section of Queensland that can justifiably be called outback. One thing that has surprised me a bit is how few Baptist Churches there are in that section of the state. Like the vast majority of the people, the churches cling in great numbers to the coastal strip. So - maybe there will not be quite as much outback involved with this job as I might have thought there would be. Still - there will be opportunities...