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A Little of West Australia & Sydney
2025
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Michael Kluckner
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Artwork & text © Michael Kluckner, 2025
The first time for either of us in West
Australia. We wanted to go in the Spring when the desert
wildflowers are in bloom, and decided to head north from Perth in
a rental car along the "Turquoise Coast" toward a set of national
parks, rather than south to the Margaret River wine area which
sounded more gastronomic than scenic (though we may have been
wrong, and we have been a little late, around the beginning of
November, for the best of the wildflowers). This is what he hoped to see out in the desert but never came across this variety and intensity of colour. The photo is from the beautiful Botanical Garden in King's Park, Brisbane. For the first five days we rented a charming cottage in Fremantle, an old seaport that now is effectively a suburb of Perth. It was an interesting and arty place to explore on foot, with lots of vintage buildings, galleries, bookstores and cafés. We then set out in a rental car. The first day was a real disappointment – a seeming endless string of cul de sacs with modern weekender bungalows, interspersed with a little countryside and some shopping malls, northwards up the coast from Perth. We overnighted in Lancelin, then in Jurien Bay before cutting inland and heading south again. The best of that part of the trip was the monastery town of New Norcia and the very unaltered village of York east of Perth. The distances were daunting, the landscape quite repetitive. Our Aussie campervan trip days of heroic roadtrips, like the 12,000 km of 2009, are probably over. We were happy to fly back to Sydney, where we stay with our daughter and grandson. As with all of my recent trips, I just carried a Moleskine sketchbook, my old black pencil, an eraser, and a small box of coloured pencils. The book's page size is 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches, 21 x 13 cm. We were both travelling REALLY light with just small backpacks, partly as we were too cheap to pay for extra luggage on the already expensive Jetstar flight, partly because it's just easier that way. |
Waiting for the 4 1/2 hour flight, 3 timezones from east to west across Australia. Plane packed from one end to the other.
Our little cottage, about a 20-minute walk from Fremantle's centre
The coast is fabulous – I could not capture the intensity of the colours with my meagre art set.
Miles of sand dunes, as white and fine as bread flour. Some folks "sandboarding" down the dunes.
We were amused by the layout (lack of punctuation) on some of the wildlife-warning signs.
It had been a wet winter followed by drought and the little bush flies were overwhelming – seeking the moisture of human eyes, nose and mouth....
In the small campervan parks there are lots of roving Aussies, well set-up with "off-road campers" for the huge distances and harsh climate.
(Below) a kangaroo in the meagre shade of a desert park; roadkill was depressingly common.
Our plane, delayed in Sydney by bad weather, was hours late leaving Perth and arrived back in Sydney just before the curfew. Lucky...
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Back to Sydney and a day in the Botanical Garden.
I wasn't happy with the ink-and-coloured-pencil combo and left them unfinished.
I have never completely settled on one style of art for travelling.
Aboriginal musician setting up amongst the crowds at Circular Quay in Sydney.
Naked except for a loin cloth, smeared with white clay, with his didgeridoo and a kangaroo pelt to sit on, and ...
a battery-powered amp and the other accoutrements of the modern busker.
"Sculpture by the Sea" is a fabulous annual event on the cliff walk between Bondi and Tamarama beaches.
We hadn't seen if since 2018 as we've usually gone to Australia during their summers.
And, above and below, a morning spent wandering in the old Sydney neighbourhood called Redfern.
It was jacaranda season: the beautiful blue-pink blossoms were all over Sydney.
... and some snapshots
A parrot visiting the garden at the Fremantle cottage.
Street art in Fremantle
An example near Fremantle of the Blue Tree Project, a mental health charity begun in 2019 to counter the stigma of suicide.
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A jacaranda in Balmain, a part of Sydney
A relief sculpture of gloves on a low stone wall in Redfern, Sydney
Circular Quay, Sydney, with an enormous cruise ship docked for the day.
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