Arrival...

So at last I have arrived in sunny Brisbane. And very sunny it is too. (If this is supposed to be late autumn then I have no idea how I’ll cope come spring and summer.)

Anyhow, being now over the worst parts of the jet lag I thought I’d pen some initial impressions. I’ve been reading a fair bit about Australia over the last couple of months but it wasn’t until the early morning flight coming across Western Australia that the size, scale and remoteness of the place really hit home.

Facts don’t always do these things justice but here’s a go: Australia is the sixth largest country, is the only island that is also a continent, and the only continent that is also an island. But not only is the place huge – about two and a half times the size of Western Europe – it is also incredibly remote. Eighty per cent of people live in urban areas, and these urban areas are almost exclusively spread around the outer rims of the country.

This all resulted in a quite wonderful experience of watching for the occasional light every 300 odd miles or so as we passed over the outback. As the plane flew on I pondered quite what existence must be like down in some of these isolated outposts. As an illustration, the Bill Bryson book I’ve been reading tells me that it was in Australia that (in all likelihood) the first terrorist nuclear test occurred in 1993, after the Aum Shinrikyo group (of the ’95 Tokyo subway fame) detonated a bomb in Western Australia. Not only had their purchase of large amounts of land containing Uranium as well hiring of a team of Russian scientists gone unnoticed, the actual explosion itself was filed away as a curiosity despite sending seismographs all over the Pacific crazy. Clearly it must be pretty remote down there. Contemplated from London the idea that such a thing could happen seemed utterly absurd; having now seen this expanse in my own eyes, skeptic no longer am I.