AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes

AUSTRALIA ~ The Antipodes
I love a sunburnt country / A land of sweeping plains / Of ragged mountain ranges / Of droughts and flooding rains / I love her far horizons / I love her jewel-sea / Her beauty and her terror / The wide brown land for me / ~ Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968)

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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Shifting Sands

Pic collage by Gemma Wiseman ~ The sands claim a pocket of colonial Namibia. These are ruins of houses at Kolmanskop, where Namibia's diamond industry was born.

Totally Optional Prompts ~ Foreign Lands

NAMIBIA
* Namibia is one of Africa's youngest (born 1990) and perhaps most mysterious nations
* The Namib Desert is 80 million years old ~ the oldest desert in the world
* Africa's only herd of wild desert horses lives in the southern Namib Desert
* To the south-east lies the Kalahari Desert
* In the heartland lies granite plains and mountain peaks with sandy valleys
* Windhoek, the capital, lying almost in the centre of Namibia, reflects 19th century German colonialism
* Luderitz, the largest town on the southern coast,(boasting its own harbour), reflects the Imperial German and art nouveau styles of architecture.
* Diamonds were discovered in 1866, and by 1913, 1/5th of Africa's mined diamonds came from Namibia
* Namibia has the lowest population density in the world
* One of Africa's oldest races lives here ~ the San Bushmen
~

Far land
Exciting secrets
Namibia enchants souls
Ancient child reborn
~
Desert
Mystic shifting sands
Offer glimpses of wisdoms
Then sweep them away
~
Townships
Built on shifting sands
Crave for earth's deep riches
Morals go astray
~
Colours
Colours of Dreamings
Colours of hopeful lifestyles
Till shifting sands play
~

Click on the logo to find out more about the enchantment of Namibia

7 comments:

Markus Latva-aho said...

Hello! Lot's of pictures to roam through. You have interesting way of shooting, sort of outsider and melancolic, in a good way! Nice to find this.

A Wild Thing said...

Beautiful, dusky desert hues, sad to think how many of the ancient tribesmen were slain for the profits of others, man for his greed and woman for her vanity...

Andy Sewina said...

Cool poetry and a great history lesson thanks for posting the pictures.

Stan Ski said...

Fascinating glimpse at the country.

Tumblewords: said...

The final four lines will stick with me for a long time. Really enjoyed this post!

Crafty Green Poet said...

wonderful photo collage. I almost visited Namibia when I lived in Malawi, but found Botswana too fascinating to leave!

Anonymous said...

The Desert poem speaks to me the most. Shifting sands that reveal a little and then cover it up.

I wrote a silly limerick about an almost romantic honeymoon cruise

-Bev

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Archive of Blog Quotes

  • A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. ~James Dent
  • Autumn is an introspective season when stray thoughts of the mind dive into the mystique of the soul - Gemma Wiseman
  • Autumn is the bridesmaid of Summer and the flowergirl of Winter ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Autumn whispers the tones of yesterday in a minor key ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Love is born / With a dark and troubled face, / When hope is dead / And in the most unlikely place; / Love is born, / Love is always born. - Michael Leunig's Christmas Song Cycle "Southern Star"
  • Spring paints the stars of heaven in Earth colours ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Summer sizzles with a sibilant hush / Broken by dreams of / Clinking ice ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. - G.K. Chesterton
  • Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. - Stanley Horowitz
  • Winter is the fire, simmering lonely in the soul ~ Gemma Wiseman
  • Winter is the shadow, the etching of the seasons in the mist ~ Gemma Wiseman

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