For my photograph this week I've chosen one of this River Red Gum tree, known locally as 'The Cazneaux Tree'. It has been photographed before. In 1937 Harold Cazneaux took a prize-winning photograph of it which he called 'The Spirit of Endurance'. He wrote: "This giant gum tree stands in solitary grandeur on a lonely plateau in the arid Flinders ranges, South Australia, where it has grown up from a sapling through the years, and long before the shade from its g...

We've come 500km north of Adelaide into what many people would probably consider the quintessential Australia - the 'Outback'. Like, I suspect, many people, I imagined the Outback as consisting of endless flat plans devoid of life but for the kangaroos bounding along like demented, overgrown rabbits on pogo sticks. Well it's true that there are long stretches of very flat land but they are covered by, albeit sparse, vegitation. And you're much more likely to see...

Yes we've reached the land of Oz. Random hugs maybe not be what you expect from an Aussie. We've landed up in Adelaide - "city of churches" - although it hasn't struck me as a particularly religious place. Mind you it's a bit of a shock coming to stay in the centre of a large city after six weeks of NZ. Rundle Street on a Saturday night looked, at first glance, a bit like the Bigg Market. Lots of bars. Young women in skimpy clothing (so Kate told me). Even a co...