Poetry Pantry #239

Rosemary Nissen-Wade's Photos

Views of New South Wales, Australia

(Read interesting descriptions in the write-up below the photos!)

Border Ranges

Cabarita Beach

Hare Krishna Farm

Knox Park

Mt. Warning

Olley House

Houseboat

Good Day, Poets!  I hope each one of you has had a Happy Valentine's Day!  Hard to believe we are already in mid-February.  I am hoping that our weather will soon take a turn for the better.   At least the days are now getting longer!  Smiles.

Today I am featuring photos taken by Rosemary-Nissen Wade.  She has included some descriptive material about her photos, which is a bit too long to be placed under individual photos; so I am including it here for your enjoyment (and, sigh, her photos and descriptions make me yearn to return to Australia again):

"Twenty years ago my late husband, Andrew, and I left the city of Melbourne in Victoria, a State in temperate southern Australia, for the sub-tropical Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, just south of the Queensland border. It consists of small towns, coastal villages, one major rural city, farmland (largely sugar cane, or banana plantations) and a lot of wilderness. We said when we arrived that this area must be Australia's best-kept secret! Since then many others have discovered it too, but it remains scenically beautiful and largely unspoilt. (We all fight hard to keep coal-seam gas fracking out.)

The most striking feature is our mountain with its three distinctive peaks, or humps, visible from almost everywhere in the region. It's an extinct volcano, and the whole region forms its huge caldera. I have shown you the view from my street, which I see every day. 

The top of this mountain is the first place in Australia to catch the morning sun. Captain Cook, sailing around the coast, named it Mt Warning, but the local indigenous people refer to it as Wollumbin (although there is some disagreement amongst them about that; it may have been mis-identified by white settlers in mistake for another nearby mountain). It is also nicknamed Cloud Catcher because it is quite often topped in cloud, usually higher up than in my photo, around the highest peak.

It is one  of a number of mountains surrounding us in every direction except the east, where we have the Pacific Ocean. I'm including a picture which I took at a friend's home, of the spectacular Border Ranges just to our north, separating the States of New South Wales and Queensland.

During that 20 years, being a renter, I have lived in various locations  around the town of Murwillumbah — usually quite close in but including six years near the ocean, half an hour away. Here's a picture of one of our many beautiful coastal beaches. This one is Cabarita Beach, taken from the headland above.

Our other great waterway is the Tweed River. This shot of a houseboat (they can be hired for river holidays) was taken at one of my favourite spots, the confluence of the Tweed and Rous Rivers at the village of Tumbulgum.

Murwillumbah is home to a variety of religions, with large Hare Krishna and Sikh communities as well as followers of Sai Baba, and all the usual Christian denominations including Seventh Day Adventists who, among other things, run vegetarian cooking classes. Many people here are vegetarian, including of course the Krishna devotees; also the whole region is particularly well supplied with health food shops and organic growers. This splendid tree is one of many at the Hare Krishna farm at nearby Eungella, where members of the public are always welcome to join the Sunday feast.

Even our urban areas are full of trees, as you can see from my shot of Murwillumbah's only roundabout, near its main park, Knox Park.

We also have some great non-natural tourist attractions, such as the spectacular Crystal Castle outside Mullumbimby (near Byron Bay) where the Dalai Lama will be speaking soon — and the very touristy town of Byron Bay itself, with big annual writers' conferences and blues and roots festivals, and popular surf beaches, to name just a few of its attractions. 

And we have a number of art galleries, including the fairly newly-built Tweed River Art Gallery which serves the whole region. In addition to its usual collections and exhibitions, it now houses the meticulously rebuilt studio/home of the late Margaret Olley, one of our foremost artists, who came from this area originally though she lived most of her life in Sydney. So, finally, I'm sharing with you a view of one of those recreated rooms, which the public gets to look at through windows.

Can you tell that I am very enthusiastic about living here?"

Thanks, Rosemary!!

Tomorrow Sherry Blue Sky will present the blog of one of our youngest poets!  Stay tuned for a treat.

I am glad many of you last Wednesday enjoyed Susan Chast's  Midweek Motif Prompt- "Love is Not a Greeting Card."  Susan always manages to find a unique slant to present on a subject, doesn't she? Be sure to visit again this Wednesday where you will find her prompting us to write on 'glass(es)'  Hmm, perhaps your mental wheels can begin to turn early.

Wasn't Rosemary Nissen-Wade's feature ("I Wish I'd Written This") presenting Pearl Ketover-Prilik's poem "Happy Birthday to My Father" wonderful?  If you haven't read it (and additional information about Pearl), please do check back for a real treat.

With no further adieu, glad to see you at the Pantry today.  Please share a poem, and visit others in the community.  Check back periodically to see the poems of others who post a link after you.  And, don't forget to say hello in the comments below.  Enjoy!