January 10, 2014 at 04:02PM

My drive from a couple of days ago to get to Eucumbene Lake took me from Bungonia past Lake Bathurst to Tarago, Bungendore, Captains Flat, and south to Cooma via Peak View and Numeralla. I read a book some time ago, called Trout Opera, which evokes the feeling of this part of Australia very well. You need to be tough to survive the wind, frost and icy temperatures in this wide-open landscape that doesn't offer much protection from the elements, and even tougher to make a living and to thrive out here. Having said that, this area has been home to some of the most productive sheep stations in Australia and did very well indeed until synthetic fibres were invented. As the saying goes, Australia survived and grew 'on the sheeps back' in those years. Much of my drive was along dry dirt roads of greyish sand and sharp rocks. The road conditions were generally pretty good, as you would expect being this close to Canberra and a relatively densely populated for country Australia. As I drove I noticed that almost all the big rocks were split by ice and by the dramatic changes in the temperature out here. It can get pretty hot during the day in summer, and then temperatures can plummet very quickly when a change comes through. Most of the rocks were covered by lichen which gives them some interesting textures when the light hits them just so. I noticed as well that some of the sheep had lichen growing on their wool as well. This makes them pretty difficult to spot as they graze amongst the yellow grass and the grey rocks. Depending on the sunlight, the sheep also take on a yellow colour which is pretty close to the straw colour of the grass. There is almost a shift in the landscape from rocks to grass and back to rocks as you drive past some of the paddocks. I loved it. The raw nature of the country, with lots of birds as well as some big deciduous trees planted by early settlers along the road ... but mostly the raw, red boles of the bug River Gum trees and the pink bark of other eucalyptus trees. The dust is bad. They haven't had rain out here in a while.