Lachlan Hadley

The 2019 Summer Bushfires felt from a distance

 

I feel utterly useless reading the news coverage on the bushfires raging through NSW and Western Victoria from here in London. Earlier in the year I took a trip along the South Coast of NSW, where the fires are currently burning, to spend some time with a photographer friend. I had made my way way up there alone on a VLine bus that drove along a continuously windy road. The road cut through tall gums and eventually opened up to the divine coast. I remember the town centres and the trees and the beautiful untouched beaches that we'd walk down to swim at everyday.

On our last day on the coast we had lunch sitting under an oak tree in the town centre of Cobargo before we headed home. It was a perfectly clear day and the hills were green on the drive in to town. I've seen pictures of the now fire ravished Cobargo town centre. It's an incredibly strange and inarticulate feeling seeing somewhere familiar in a state of crisis. It's even more strange being on the other side of the world where the climate is consistently cold and damp at this time of year.

For this last post of the year I've attached an image of a print by my neighbour back in Melbourne, Ros Atkins.

Guardian, 2001, Rosalind Atkins