Mid-Spring Long Weekend

You can't speak to anyone in the Pilbara without these three questions: 1)How long have you been here? 2) Where are you from? 3) Do you enjoy it?

Don't get me wrong, it's a great conversation starter.

People are split into three camps (generally speaking) - those who hate it but are here for the money, those that love it and are here for the money, and those that genuinely love it.

The people that hate it here are depressing and those that just love it generally scorn those who are in between. You do get really tired of people thinking you live and work in the Pilbara just because of the money, but let's fact it without the opportunities on offer here, what do you have? It's remote, it's hot, there's cyclones and virtually no shade! It's not everyone's cup of tea.

Fortunately though, I love it. It's unique, it's beautiful it's own way, the colours are amazing and as long as the cyclones behave themselves by not destroying my house I enjoy the rain.

It's the first week of October and we are heading back to QLD for a visit. Migration home is inevitable each year. We live about as far away from 'home' as you can get on mainland Australia. 'Home' is south-east QLD, a little pocket of paradise.

Further into a general Pilbara 'How do you do?' conversation, you get to the part where you talk about what you most miss about 'home' - wherever that may be. For me, I miss the green. I've had locals laugh at me, look down and me and scorn when I say that, followed by a quick retort of 'It's green (when it rains) here!' Um, yes it is but you can't sit and relax on spinafex, even if it is green! Nor does it provide shade. I think they just seem to have forgotten the pockets of paradise this country has - such as SE QLD, the Daintree, Victoria, the Tasmanian forests...They are kind of spectacular and I miss them - the dense trees, the shade, the rainforest, the damp smell.

So in honour of our long weekend back to QLD to visit family, I am posting some photos from the archives in the hopes that in my love for the Pilbara I am not blinded to the fact that there are some other beautiful parts of this country!

PS: When I say from the archives, I mean it! These babies are some of my first panoramas, taken pre-SLR.

View from one of our 4WD trips. I can't even remember if this was taken with my Olympus or my first camera, a little Kodak. I just like the green grass - that is stuff you can roll around in!

The Daintree. Where the rainforest meets the ocean. It. Is. Amazing. (panorama not so good - taken on my $100 Kodak camera when we were first married. I said archives!)

This post would not be complete without a view of the Glass House Mountains. Only a few hours drive from where we lived, this is on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland...otherwise known as paradise! (Panorama generated in-camera on my Olympus u-900)