Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.

Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.

Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.

Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.

As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.

A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.

Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013

He lay awake in his narrow bed
And opened his bedside drawer,
Then fumbled around until he’d found
The thing he was looking for,
A faded folder, covered in dust
It must have been there for years,
‘I want you to take this folder, son,
And give it to Mildred Pierce!’

His grandson blinked away a tear
And uttered a silent sigh,
Then dropped his gaze, he found it hard
To look in the old man’s eye,
He knew he wouldn’t be there for long
Though his steely brow was fierce,
He said, ‘Sure Gramps, I’ll pass it along
When I find your Mildred Pierce.’

‘You’ll find her back where I left her, when
The way of the world was wide,
Up on the banks of the Darling, she’ll
Be there on the Wentworth side,
She used to teach when the town was young
In a little timber school,
I should have stayed, but the girl had clung
And I guess I was just a fool.’

‘She looked so prim in her teacher dress
And her hair was up in a bun,
We used to walk by the river banks
When her teaching day was done,
Down in the shade of the eucalypts
I kissed her there one day,
With her hair let down on her shoulders
She said, ‘Please don’t go away.’’

‘I only stayed for the shearing, then
I followed the shearing tracks,
I had to keep on the move as long
As the wool grew on their backs,
We said goodbye at the junction where
The mighty rivers join,
I should have stayed for the love she gave
But my only love was coin.’

The old man, he was exhausted then,
Lay back, and then he sighed,
His grandson waited a moment, but
He saw that his gramps had died,
He took a look in the folder when
He settled in back at home,
And found a number of pages there
And each one was a poem.

One called ‘Sorry!’ and one called ‘Why?’
And one that he’d drowned in tears,
One that was just a stark lament
‘For the Love of Mildred Pierce’.
The boy had blushed at the poem meant
To eulogise her thighs,
While others sought for her tender lips
And the lovelight in her eyes.

He waited until the summer break
When the funeral was done,
Loaded the car and headed out
To where the rivers run,
He thought that she would be dead by this
It was just an exercise,
But when he had asked for Mildred Pierce
They had caught him by surprise.

‘She’s out on the banks of the Darling
You can’t miss her little shack,
She keeps herself to herself, prefers
To wander the outback.’
He stopped the car at her garden gate
And he called out by her door,
‘I’m looking for Mildred Pierce!’ Then heard
Her footsteps on the floor.

He half expected an ancient dame
With half a foot in the hearse,
But what he saw was a lovely girl
And still in her tender years,
‘They named me after my mother
Who was named for her mother too,
But Gran’s been gone for ever so long
So what did you want to do?’

They sat on her small verandah, and
He showed her the folder then,
‘My gramps wrote these for your grandmother,
Some time in the way back when.’
She slowly read through the pile of verse
And her eyes had filled with tears,
‘I’d heard all about this shearer from
My grandma, Mildred Pierce.’

‘He couldn’t have known they had a child,
My mother arrived in the spring,
And she was told who her father was
But they never heard a thing.
My Grannie died as a spinster, still
A teacher at the school.
How sad that he couldn’t reach her then
To say that his heart was full.’

They went to walk by the river where
Some fifty years before,
A teacher walked with a shearer for
A magic moment more,
They stopped, stood under the eucalypts
With them both reduced to tears,
And that was the moment he kissed her,
For the love of Mildred Pierce.

David Lewis Paget

The cottage stood at the outer edge
Of the village of Helsomewhere,
It held a slate on the garden gate
That scribbled a ‘Don’t Go There!’
It housed a cat and a resident bat
And something that moved within,
A thing unseen that was quite unclean
With various types of sin.

The folk that entered the garden gate
Had never gone back there twice,
When asked, they shuddered enough to state
‘It’s something that isn’t nice!’
The weeds were thick in the garden, and
Had grown right over the path,
And filled with sand by an old wash-stand
The remains of an iron bath.

Nobody walked the bullock track
That led by the old front door,
To go to town, they’d hurry around
A path that was there before,
The cottage stood like an ancient crone
That blighted the village scene,
A pointing finger, pared to the bone
Reminding them what had been.

At night the Moon rose over the ridge
And it cast an evil glow,
Down through the leaves of the eucalypts
To the cottage, far below,
The windows looked like a pair of eyes
As they stared out through the gloom,
While something was rushing around inside
Like a demon in a tomb.

‘Perhaps we ought to have burnt it,’
Said the senior councilman,
‘It stands alone as our conscience,’ said
The crusty old farmer, Stan,
‘We have to bleed for our own misdeeds,
Including a lack of care,
Each scream was seen as a nightmare dream
When Lloyd was living there.’

When Lloyd was hosting his dinners for
The girls from a nearby town,
Nobody seemed to question them
For Lloyd was always a clown,
But screams would happen at midnight
And would often be heard at dawn,
When Lloyd was digging his garden patch
By the light of the early morn.

And Lloyd would wave to his neighbours as
They hurried along his way,
Give them a cheery greeting, crack a joke
And say ‘Gidday!’
They didn’t suspect that evil lay
Inside in that old tin bath,
The one that is filled with sand, and now
Sits there, outside by the path.

One night the villagers crept on out,
And they took it each by turn,
To set a brand to the cottage, then
Stand back to watch it burn,
But something was rushing about inside
In a black and evil cloak,
While screams had seemed to come in a tide
With the dark and acrid smoke.

The embers were floating far and wide
In the haze of a Harvest Moon,
They set up fires in the eucalypts
That rained in the village gloom,
And every cottage went up in smoke
For the villagers’ part, they share
In the deaths of thirteen innocent girls
In the Hell of Helsomewhere!

David Lewis Paget

Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,

certain airy white blossoms punctually
reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink--
a delicate abundance. They seemed

like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed
festival day, unaware of the year's events, not perceiving
the sackcloth others were wearing.

To some of us, the dejected landscape consorted well
with our shame and bitterness. Skies ever-blue,
daily sunshine, disgusted us like smile-buttons.

Yet the blossoms, clinging to thin branches
more lightly than birds alert for flight,
lifted the sunken heart

even against its will.
But not
as symbols of hope: they were flimsy
as our resistance to the crimes committed

--again, again--in our name; and yes, they return,
year after year, and yes, they briefly shone with serene joy
over against the dark glare

of evil days. They are, and their presence
is quietness ineffable--and the bombings are, were,
no doubt will be; that quiet, that huge cacophany

simultaneous. No promise was being accorded, the blossoms
were not doves, there was no rainbow. And when it was claimed
the war had ended, it had not ended.

It is late dry season.
The creek bed an empty, rocky,
Corridor to remaining pools.
Climbing a slight crest,
An improbable rock,
Artfully shaped and poised,
Balanced atop a tall pillar,
Reveals the hand of nature.
Below rock ledges polished
By water and burnished by sun
Lies a deep pool of clear water.
Lilly pads float on long tendrils.
Purple lotus flowers open to the sun.
In the water, the Lilly pads,
Impossibly green, cling
To the surface, on which
Water skimmers dart to and fro,
Dragon fly hover, and lazy fish
Swim by, all unperturbed
by the floating human.
Across the pool's outlet, tall saplings
Of grevillea sway in the light breeze.
Parrots balance in the swaying tops,
Their orange shoulder colours
Match the grevillea flowers.
A lone fruit bat, separated
From the colony, climbs hand
Over hand, up and down branches,
To share the nectar.
In the afternoon shade
Of paper bark trees and
White barked eucalypts,
Sitting on the smooth rock,
Which gives comfort without
Being comfortable, the warmth
Of the rock against wet skin
Links us to others who have lain here
Sharing these sensations.

it appears as though
there was a coup,
in kookaburra land,
this morning.

much fuss,
and cacophony.
as the brown and blue kingfisher clan, reassembled,
their royal court.

the big old king,
uncurled his talons,
unfurled his wings,
gave one last,
manical chuckle....
and fell from his perch.

to lie still,
upon the dusty,
brown earth.

shocked, silence for some seconds, and then...
the eucalypts erupted into, (what would appear to the outsider);
cold calculating mirth.

as the young jacko princes, all began the joking joust
for the top place berth.

in a melee of swooping, chuckling grace,
a contest no less,
set to test....
mettle, worth and cackle call.
each young bird,
takes to the wing and flies into the maddening...and how close,
         how loud,
                  how startling,
         they can be.
            is made known,      
by those,
whose years,    
            have flown.

when all, is said and done. tourney overflown,
feathers are preened.
then the winner
is presented,
with opportunity, bold....
to nest the queen.
as to the rest,
they take their place,
in the chaotic, cackling, cacophonous,
kookabuurra clan nests.
to bide their time,
until, the next coup,
                        comes calling...

We’d travelled more than a hundred miles
From the nearest outback town,
The sun was roasting the plains out there
And the heat was getting us down,
We’d left all the eucalypts behind
And there wasn’t a patch of green,
Only a scrubby saltbush there
Where the natives used to dream.

We halted just as the sun went down
And Miranda let out a sigh,
‘Have ever you seen such stars as these?’
And pointed up at the sky,
The heavens shone with a mighty glow
From the stars that glittered, proud,
Each was lighting the earth below
From the inky black of its shroud.

But underneath us the ground was hot
And the track it lay, bone dry,
There’d not been even a single drop
Of rain, since the last July,
We huddled up in the four wheel drive
As the air began to chill,
I pulled a blanket across our knees
And we slept for a little while.

Miranda had some Arunta blood
From her great-grandmother’s side,
She’d learned of some of their culture, and
She had the Arunta pride,
We woke to a distant whirring sound
And Miranda sat up straight,
And murmured, ‘That’s a Tjurunga
Trying to open heaven’s gate.’

‘The white men call it a Bull Roarer,’
She said, with a hint of fear,
‘And I’m forbidden to hear it, for
It’s not for a woman’s ear.
They’ll **** me if they should find me here
For breaking their sacred law,’
She slid down over her seat, and sat
Her head down, close to the floor.

I climbed on out of the cab, and stood
Surveying the dark surround,
The whirring seemed to be closer now,
And the pitch went up and down,
An icy chill ran along my spine
As I saw a movement there,
Something slithering over the ground
Not far from where we were.

I froze in shock, and I held my breath
When I saw a pair of eyes,
Both the colour of rubies, and
Of quite enormous size,
And then I saw the head of the snake
As it ploughed a furrow, deep,
Its body the colours of rainbows, then
Miranda took a peep.

She said, ‘It’s the Rainbow Serpent,’
As the whirring sound went on,
Covered her ears and shut her eyes
And said, ‘It’ll soon be gone.’
I climbed back into the cab and locked
The door, and lay down flat,
Trembled in fear, I’d never seen
A snake as big as that.

The dawn was gradually breaking as
I took a look outside,
And there, where the ground had been quite flat
Was a creek, ten metres wide,
And water, straight from the Queensland rains
Was pouring over the land,
Sluicing along the new creek bed
Where before, there was only sand.

I’d never believed in the Dreamtime
Or the tales that the natives tell,
But somewhere the Rainbow Serpent roams
With eyes from heaven or hell,
We turned the nose of the jeep around,
Drove back to the town once more,
I’ll never return to the desert, where
You can hear the Bull Roarer’s roar!

David Lewis Paget

A fish out of water slaps
for the wet familiar
as first rainbow gasps
for all colour beneath
evergreen eucalypts

and boy becomes hunter.

White flesh in the pan
rainbow now grey;
a dull eye pops in the fat.
The first meal of camp

"We're all about survival"
says the voice from the beard.

In that first howling night the tent holds no echo:
a cocoon of down
muffles the want of a scream
for mother’s goodnight.

Terrain is now is real and not just a geography lesson.

When morning arrives
relief and sunlight slap awake
the face of survival.
Mosquitoes frustrate the zippered gauze, march-flies marshal to march.

Wisps of gum-smoke, the smell of the wild, steam from hot-streams on tussocks, beans in the pannikin, dust in the billy, leaves of tea and gumtree chase the boil.

Longer walk today; boots even more ready for rubbing off skin.

Fourteen miles to the next creek and next water.
Ache in the pack
No rest only winter.
The dingo pads on.
Wild boar root en mass. Wombats rummage the banks.
Wallabies thump up the ridge-line.

"We’ll circle our tent-line and raise tonight’s fire after dark."
Says the beard and walks on.

The hunter
Seeks now no quarry
Dreams the snap of a soft sheet
and mouths words
for the water of home.

Cedar Creek
a moonlit evening
looking up into sparkling eucalypts

After rain
The moon is reflected
In every droplet
On every leaf,
Simplicity has sent her messengers

With the brush and rustle of an evening breeze
These celestial missives begin to fall

To leave
the moon more eminent



MChallis © 2015

He hadn’t lived in the world of men
Since he’d tossed his job, and quit,
He’d told his boss, ‘There’s no future here
And so, here’s an end of it!’
The grimy city was getting him down
And the noise was driving him spare,
So he said goodbye to the world of fumes
To head for the open air.

He found a tumbledown cottage that
Nobody seemed to own,
The roof was keeping the weather out
So he thought to call it home.
He cobbled together some furniture,
A bench and a rustic chair,
And sat in the shade of the eucalypts,
And bagged the occasional hare.

The cottage was back off an ancient track
Unsealed, and long out of use,
The nearest cottage a mile away
In a similar state of abuse,
The pioneers had been and gone
Leaving just these standing stones,
A testament to a rugged life,
They were now just piles of bones.

Though at first the silence suited him
It would give him time to think,
He would lie at night awake and cite
That the sky was made of ink,
An ink shot through with pinpricks so
That the stars came shining through,
And feel, as the Autumn dampness fell
On his face as morning dew.

But Autumn shivered to Winter and
It would rain and pour for days,
He’d look on out to the distance where
All he could see was haze,
He’d keep a fire in the ancient hearth
With wood, when it wasn’t wet,
And curse himself for short-sightedness
When it was, or he’d forget.

Then his hearing tuned to the many sounds
That he’d missed before in the bush,
The slightest sound of a twig that cracked
Or a breath of wind, at a push,
He heard the echo of silences
That whispered over the plains,
A spirit stirred that he’d never heard
Before, in his city pains.

But someone back in the world he’d known
Was worried that he had died,
And found the tumbledown cottage where
His friend was lying inside.
He wouldn’t answer his queries when
He spoke in a human voice,
Such sounds were strange to a mind that ranged
When given a different choice.

Then the doctors came to check on him
And the police turned up en masse,
They said, ‘We’re having to take him in,
He’ll harm himself at the last.’
But he raised one hand when they closed on him
In a manner distinctly odd,
And whispered ‘Hush! If you strain you just
Might hear the voice of God!’

David Lewis Paget

Eucalypts hang from blue sky railings
The mud is dry, ground is hard
The white ute in the garden
is silent
I love the sound without wind blowers
and lawn mowers
Words are gathering at Newstead
anarchists too
A short story tattoo
Ideas are crowded and loud
galloping around the racetrack
But it's quiet here at the Mudhouse
with the brown dog in the garden

distant trucks thunder, echoes
rolling to highways. rumble of an infinite snake
re-forms. bulb of early winter flicks a
chill dawn switch.

diet rest. roused by masculine weakness. mind a Geiger
lost to solace. months before, witness to birds searching for a
weathered nest returned to twigs. building new
shelter, stick by stick, between protected branches.

family of fledglings waits & squawks
for bugs & worms. engineer’s toil of wings, claws & beak,
gathering remnants from eucalypts, weaving
& melding a fragile & gradual shelter.

morning sheds light, more cars hum, the reptile
lengthens. blood streams through arteries to a vital *****
without heart, lungs gasp for breath. weary heads of
commuters magnetized to caffeine spill from stations.

roar of trucks, clatter of trains, buses hum and insecure
shouts through wireless devices to invisible nobodies.
green lights, red lights, chicken players. chaos of city stutters &
halts, stutters & halts.

sudden gust beats at coats and dresses, whips ‘round trousers.
leaves limbo as autumn strips summer from trunks. a new nest
hit by a violent burst tumbles, disintegrating to
fragments.

Unseen snow below.
Against the blue sky the burnt
Bleached branches of eucalypts.

One more instance of "Ha!"

Her silence graced in magnitude-

(Later morphing to gratitude.)

How else can she get into me

Without the getting out

Risking messes

Appearing crass

Commonplace cranky consequence-

(Arms-at-length-race mollases

We’re speaking

My tweaking- my leaking to the harem

How the here and now is full

Of legitimate - and within them

Pleasurable - "food-**** droooooool!")


“If you cannot bypass the mind and tell

Of matters of the dark

Then you cannot truly feast in me,”- says she

(Hammering another nail to the coffin

She'll later pry her way out of

With bleeding finger-pincers.)

And she knows well

- Within the bleakness of her blinkers -

I pay heed to the last line first

(Like the best wine)

Like the rest are but companions

Empty canyons of thirst

To pass through - read, though invisibly -

Drunk in the abyss of her eyes

To the point the crux- the joint

Hanging off her lips (Methinks though

She anoints too much

My common face my everyman disguise)



There’s a particular

Bi-polar / bi-lingual / by the book

Instance of crazy- where

There’s no emoticon for her to say

"Look!  Look how you pained me - comic hero -

By hook or crook, my balance again zero!"

(... To date / Too late?)

To state- quite unequivocally

“You ****** me over

Through your unpalatable impatience

To glee your table- lover.”



She stays in silence mode

(This being her distraction / extraction

Direction away from the pangs:

Her skinny *** seeking my validation.)



She made the reservation

(I said I like to eat there often...)

She paid for my libation

(Her offering a generous concession!)

She bade happy expression

(Happily, I touted I’d partake there

This day.)

"Ole!"

(No matter how ill-gotten

How rotten the buffet affirmation-

Just mind the cliches eh?)



Eat! Drink! "Be

(In the moment-

Joyful in the scenes she paints

Breathing in eucalypts and ferns

And the blue haze of malcontent.)

Merry."

Days she provides the means:

“Go, do, say, live-

Big as the State you're in!”

And I so go

And I do things we both know

And I am living at a table

Where she does not partake /gestate

The joy; (Too late - huh - to prostate my love.)

When she can only pay the bill

Before the meal

Then skulk away-

She no third wheel

Conjugate; I no Achille's heel

To virtually ***** and slay and say-

"What if we-"

('We' at an impasse.)



But then I sway

I summon her via ether- choking

Gasping for breath, evoking croaking

"I need you to appear. My dear let's play!"

Her magic wand, her bearer bond

Her transfer again spawned

(My avarice umpteenth reborn

My hunger for the Big Pond

Horn of Plenty "Hey!" day

‘Tween we- still.)

In the morning light,

When the air is still,

Before the noises of the day

Intrude upon the mind,

A certain clarity 

Becomes a possibility,

When in moments of repose,

One can turn inside

To find deeper moods, 

Both beautiful and darker spaces, 

Places of uncertainty,

Tinged thus with anxiety,

As if, when walking in wild hills,

One comes across a vantage point,

A jutting outcrop of rock,

Overhanging a plunging valley,

And standing there alone,

One's consciousness sinks into the abyss,

Its tumbled sea of wooded slopes, 

Above which rise rugged pinnacles

Wreathed round with mountain mist.



Across a vault so vast, 

A tiny bird,

Caught in a ray of sunshine,

Seems to hang and float,

As might a dust-mote,

In a beam of tinted light,

Streaming down 

Into the transept of a great cathedral,

Illuminating the space

With divine renown, 

A sacred sense of depth,

With perspective so beyond 

All human understanding,

As to still one's breath

And overwhelm the viewer

With a sense sublime,

So near the dread of death.



Pondering thus, 

In awe,

I follow with my eyes 

The rugged forest,

Sweeping steeply down
Towards the valley-floor,

Those silent soundings

Somewhere out of sight, 

Which seem to promise 

More than I can see,

Invoking a sense of mystery

Of something hidden 

In the unseen depths below, 

And a sense again,

Of something closer still,

An abiding presence 

Of a far more intimate kind,

Calling me downward,

And, in my mind,

I begin to descend, 

Over great granite boulders,

Hand-holds found on branches, 

Offered here and there

In the tumble of mighty rocks

By trees clinging to crevices between,

Bending as they take my weight,

Shaking rustling leaves,

As I climb downward carefully,

Hand over hand,

With lack of sureness,

And fear of a poor foothold,

A slide of rock, a slip, 

A fatal fall,

Into the abyss.



At last when I have scrambled down

The wild and rough escarpment,

I stop to catch my breath,

Beneath the mass of rock,

The titanic building blocks

Of this timeless landscape,

I find the ancient ground gives way 

To a less demanding gradient, 

And my breathing comes more easily

Descending now less dangerously, 

My shoulders brushed 

By lighter leafy foliage, 

As I step down through dense bush,

Pushing back branches from my face,

Sliding over fallen trees,

And make my way down,

Through thigh-high bracken,

Between the trunks of mighty 

Mountain eucalypts,

Those giants marching silently

Down to the valley floor.



Down here the air is cooler,

And I hear a distant murmur, 

Not of mountain breezes 

Sighing in the tops of trees,

But rather the enticing sound 

Of running water, 

Coming from an unseen place,

Nearby, waiting to be found

In this shadowed peaceful realm,

Where sunlight touches softly,

Catching the frond of a fern,

Shining on smooth white boughs,

And I go further down and in,

Until the watery bell-clear sound

Seems all around, 

And reflected light catches my eye,

Between the trees and foliage,

Until eventually 
I step out into a clearing

An open space

Where there is a great flat rock,

Around which a shallow creek flows

Over a bed of white stones, 

And two great straight trees

Stand like sentinels, 

Guardians of this lovely glade, 

Water gurgling around and below 

Their gnarled roots built like buttresses.



Here I stand in breathless silence, 

Marvelling at the light

Filtering down

Through the towering trees

And floating fronds of tree-ferns

High above me,

Its soft and golden luminosity

Bringing a sense of mystery, 

And the grandeur of stillness 

To this peaceful place,

Where water trickles soothingly.


And as the beauty of this vale

Fills my mind with thoughts

Of Nature's splendour,

I sense the presence

Of that one,
I far too easily forget,
Who abides here in this valley,

Who appears

Unbidden in my dreams,

And whose steady gaze

Has always brought me back

To deep reflection,

For she is my mirror,

Soul, and centre of my being,

And I sense her standing 

Close beside me

By the running stream,

Arms outstretched to welcome me

To our place of blissful unity,

Where I will never be alone,

For she is ever-present here,

Always awaiting my descent,

My return to what is home, 

So felt with awe and gratitude,

Our lovely Vale of Solitude.

But for the skies there are no fences facing
The crow speaks into the blue openness
I don't have to be anybody else here

Eucalypts hang lazily
This part of the earth bends into the sun
Its natural inclination

There are no labels
The cupped hands that held the rains are still there
They can't be bought or sold

I feel the press and the crowd
The roof-blown churches
The new religion loud
Where to now?

Well, just as you are

Into this landscape
Changing with the seasons
Falling and rising

Australia, in that time, was a harsh and unforgiving place with a people born of convict stock. Hardship depicted that things were black and white and, should circumstance turn bad, matters were dealt with in a manner reflecting the brutality of the country.

The relentless dry heat of the baking sun, the listless hang of the eternal eucalypts and the everlasting expanse of red rock and vast flat plains, the shimmering mirage on the horizon and the impossibility of what lay ahead.

Whatever eventuated to destroy the life of the Frye's was borne
in the unrelenting hardship of the country and the oppression of the circumstance prevailing at that time.

To some degree a vestige of the same inherent legacy remains, subliminally, in the heart and minds of the denizens who chose to live in Australia to this day, reflecting, to a large degree, the extreme of the vastness and unforgiving nature of this land .

M
Who fled these shores 55 years ago for the abundance of New Zealand.