April Fall

Now if you actually read all this gibberish I type you may have got the hint that things are a bit more autumnal here, yeah sunny 25C days, I know sounds horrific, especially when there is a “heatwave” in the UK and the Sun is no doubt printing pictures of a couple of students frolicking in the water in Bournemouth. However, there are some clearly visible signs of autumn, as I discovered through a walk of the inner south suburbs.

I guess the colours are not really what you expect to see in Australia, more akin to New England, but I can assure you we are still in Australia and can prove it with hard evidence of a cockatoo in one of the blazing trees.

I crunched my way through empty streets coated with leaves and dodging any acorn storms…the other day one of the trees near work seemed to drop all its acorns in one go (yeah, it is Australia…sedate autumnal tree turns potential killer). I also narrowly missed a horse chestnut which landed a few inches in front of me one morning.

As I walked along Golden Drive in Red Hill, surely named for this time of year, kids were sweeping up the leaves in their large gardens, dogs were being walked and families were cycling the streets in that oh-so-wholesome way. The leafy suburbs eventually gave way to Red Hill Reserve, more the traditional bushland but with views back over the autumnal idyll.

I spent a good hour here, viewing and listening to the wildlife and watching the city change colour as the sun drifted lower in the sky. It was, after quite a busy day and week, the perfect antidote to the stresses of life in the 21st century…leaving me truly engrossed in the environment and not thinking of anything else.


Walking back home, the sky quickly blackened and more Canburnians were queuing outside Manuka Oval for balloons at night. I’m sure this would’ve been a bit of a spectacle but then when you have such spectacle from Mother Nature, who needs balloons?!