The smell of Australian summer is toasted grass and sand pounded by the sun so it is only moments from turning to glass. A proper white sand and Indian Ocean beach at midday is a coruscant mirror of blue and white, shards of it splintering off to impale your eyes and flay the soles off your feet. The heat slams you down whilst it compels you to levitate in your haste to make the shade.
In the bush the heat crawls into your ears with the low hum of the land choking and the insects and animals panting and it pushes out your energy until you can feel your strength running in silver, salty floods down your skin.
I walked to the lunch bar today and while yesterday I was able to cope without sunglasses, today I needed their blessed shade. As I passed over freshly mown cooch grass my nostrils flared and I could smell that unique smell of singed grass being baked into a slice of grey-brown summer lawn, leaven with the fried sandy soil of the Perth coastal plain.
It is hot over here, it is still only spring and my soul is gorged with the anticipation of summer.
In the bush the heat crawls into your ears with the low hum of the land choking and the insects and animals panting and it pushes out your energy until you can feel your strength running in silver, salty floods down your skin.
I walked to the lunch bar today and while yesterday I was able to cope without sunglasses, today I needed their blessed shade. As I passed over freshly mown cooch grass my nostrils flared and I could smell that unique smell of singed grass being baked into a slice of grey-brown summer lawn, leaven with the fried sandy soil of the Perth coastal plain.
It is hot over here, it is still only spring and my soul is gorged with the anticipation of summer.
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