Marysville lies within one of Victoria’s most distinctive mountain landscapes, a country of towering forests, fern-covered gullies, flowing rivers and waterfalls descending through ancient stone. Although the village rests at the centre of the region, it is the surrounding landscape that has always remained strongest in my memory. Mountains rise behind dense layers of vegetation;…
Among the ruins of a forgotten medieval town, water, plants, and human imagination have created one of the most romantic gardens in the world. Some gardens provide a feast for the eyes, while others awaken the imagination. The Garden of Ninfa belongs to the latter. Here, the ruins of a long-abandoned medieval town are being…
On the outskirts of Melbourne, hidden beneath the towering Mountain Ash and luxuriant tree ferns of the Dandenong Ranges, lies one of Victoria’s most unusual cultural landscapes. William Ricketts Sanctuary is at once an open-air gallery, a forest retreat, and a deeply personal expression of one artist’s reverence for the natural world. The sanctuary occupies…
What could an amateur gardener and freelance photographer and writer living among the concrete suburbs of Melbourne possibly have in common with Claude Monet, one of the greatest painters in the history of art? The answer is simple: a love of gardens, flowers, colour, and the endless inspiration found in nature. ‘The richness I achieve…
Until recently, California redwoods belonged, in my imagination, to another world, a distant realm of mist, immense trees, and ancient forests on the opposite side of the Pacific. Since childhood, these giants had fascinated me. I imagined what it might feel like to stand beneath trees that had lived for centuries and grown higher than…
Wild, remote and often breathtaking, Wilsons Promontory National Park is one of Victoria’s great natural landscapes. Granite mountains rise above forests and open grasslands, while white sandy beaches, secluded coves, and rocky headlands stretch along the southern coastline. Known simply as the Prom, the park forms the southernmost point of mainland Australia. It lies around…
Nestled near the mountain village of Olinda, just over an hour’s drive east of central Melbourne, the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden is one of Victoria’s finest displays of cool-climate plants. Set high in the Dandenong Ranges, the garden combines cultivated beauty with the atmosphere of the surrounding forest. Towering Mountain Ash trees rise above sweeping…
Delicate yet lethal. A frantic burst of wings from my backyard could mean only one thing: a predator had arrived. Looking through the kitchen window, I watched sparrows, spotted doves, crested pigeons and noisy miners suddenly scatter in every direction. These familiar visitors often startle easily, but this was different. Their hurried escape suggested that…