26 March

A lot of countries give you a feeling of human history, sometimes going back thousands of years. But Australia feels much older than that again, like geologically old. There's not much else about Australia that I couldn't find somewhere else. But the landscape feels imprinted in my soul, I think many Australians feel that. I suspect it's something we acquired through osmosis from aboriginal people, without even realising. The land speaks to us. I could never be separated from it permanently without feeling an irreplaceable loss. Germaine Greer once said whitefellas in Australia are more aboriginal than they realise. I think there's something profound about that.