Overwhelming beauty of nature

Did you go to the Guggenheim in Bilbao?

And I had

The huge construction of of shiny titanium with its labyrinthine galleries

The best of humanities construction

And the oohing and aahing ensued

But only 80km away was the Picos de Europa

Vast canyons of granite

Ribbons of gorges

Crystalline glaciers

Shaped by the earth itself by nature the great creator.

I saw the Cathedral in Santiago de Compestella

With its imposing edifice

Its halls and alters adorned with gold and silver

The faithfuls tribute to God above

To his heavenly powers

But north of Santiago de Compestella

On the coast is the Praia das Catedrais

The marble buttresses carved by the sea and the wind

The halls and caves rich in the colors of nature, the sheen of the rock the soft green of the moss

Natures gift to us to treasure and enjoy

I find I have my faith now in nature

In the earth

Not in a belief, a god, a spirit, an omnipotent by non existent creation of a prophets mind

But in the earth and the land that we too often take for granted

The earth and the land that gives life

I met an Aboriginal Elder in Cape York – Willie Gordon

From the Guugu Yimithirr tribe

His descriptions of the relationship between the Aboriginal Australians and the land shifted my understanding of the land and nature

The life giving force of nature and the land

For we are of the land and at its end we return to the land

You know your back in Australia

An Aussie beach northern NSW

The emblamtic difference between Europe and Australia is the long white sandy beach

With little or no trace of humans

It really can only happen in Australia

And on a warm spring day the whales can be seen off shore breaching and blowing

Smashing their huge trident tails into the water as swim south to Antarctica for summer.

Sunset mid west NSW

The space is overwhelming

Riding nearly 1000 km in a day, on small back roads with little traffic.

The big purple sunset across the open paddocks

But the cherry blossom at Young in the southern highlands a reminder that there is so much of Europe transported here.