Two things remained open to me while I was in lockdown. The first was the dull heartbeat of the natural world I could find in the suburb I lived in...
Category: Melbourne Stories
Hope for dingoes at the Dingo Discovery Centre
In 2018, I booked a Cub tour at the Dingo Discovery Centre in Toolern Vale, Victoria, imagining how lovely it would be to cuddle some cute dingo cubs. But what I discovered that day changed my world...
Street art doesn’t have to D-V-Ate from conservation
When Jimmy Beattie first started dabbling in graffiti art around 1996, there was no such thing as a professional mural artist. These days, Jimmy works almost solely on conservation-focused commissions, mostly of local Victorian species.
4 ways to keep your lockdown walk interesting
So how on earth do I make the 160th walk during my lunchtime break seem new and exciting? Here’s a few things I’ve tried…
Rediscovering childhood joy down the Dandenong Creek
This was the place, in the middle of a bustling suburb, where I was first able to witness the wild. Well, as wild as I had ever seen before in Melbourne...
Winter is a wonderland in the Macedon Ranges
Some property of this volcanic landscape seems to come alive in miserable weather – perhaps the dew on weeping leaves of eucalypts or the lichen on granite boulders, which stands out all the better against a dull sky...
Blackburn’s bushland hideout
A network of dirt paths meanders through an expanse of bushland totalling 63 acres, enclosed by trees which reflect in the still water or drop leaves into the trickling stream that feeds the lake...
See the age-old Lion’s Head Tree at Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens
The Lion’s Head Tree, so named because of the evocative appearance of a gall on its trunk...
Four decades of sustaining inner Melbourne’s green heritage
One of the longest-running community conservation groups in the Banyule region, Darebin Parklands Association protects one of urban Melbourne’s most valued green spaces...
The biodiversity secrets of Anthony Beale Reserve
Located in the leafy north-eastern suburb of St Helena, Anthony Beale Reserve is a place steeped in history...