This is an attempt to capture the alien strangeness of the Nullarbor Plain which borders the Great Australian Bight. Despite its name it has plenty of hardy trees in places, but no surface water whatsoever. It is a totally flat expanse of bedrock almost seven hundred miles wide, and I have driven every inch of it!

 

The Traveller's Eye

O the light flows quickly over this blasted plain,

 as sunfall throws its half-mile shadows,

   and inland gums offer narrow leaves

                                      to a scent of rain,

 

while alizarin and cadmium stain the Western sky.

                                             False meadows

of spinifex spike the traveller's eye

when time dissolves, and the ancient redrock mellows.

 

And the ground smells of cooling earth, sea salt, diesel, flies,

beyond cliffs that rise nine hundred feet; the crash of combers

on Jurassic ramparts, like a de-railed steamtrain far below.

                                                                   The cries

 

of passengers falling, flailing to echoed caverns,

where sea eagles circle, dive,

            and the fishes and the turtles play.

 

A dream remembered from long ago survives,

as the dingos howl at dusk, and years go by;

        The unseen Nullabor sleeps its nightmares away.

 

Chris Hubbard

Lower Withington

2017