9 August 2024

This was a bit surprising

I was expecting vast barren lands in the Great Australian Desert. Turns out there is fairly good amount of vegetation. At least in this part of the Outback. The most surprising part is there are absolutely no animals – no grazing animals, no wild beasts, no reptiles. Just a few birds.

Upon enquiring with the locals, found out that since here we are exiting winter now here, most of the animal kingdom is still in hibernation. The birds are the first to wake up and come around…

9 August 2024

There it is!

What an amazing piece of geological formation. The whole thing is one monolithic structure. If you start digging, that rock goes for another 2.5 km underground! This has been the one thing I always wanted to come to Australia for!

8 August 2024

My best friend from school days

Avijit and I were fairly inseparable when we were in middle/high school. Once I moved to the USA, we rarely got a chance to meet. He left for England first and then eventually Australia.

I did see him in 1999 in Kolkata, then around 2018 or so in the USA and then again in 2022 when both of us happened to be in Kolkata at the same time. Ironically, both of us were there to clean up all the property, bank accounts and such after our parents died. His mom and my parents all passed away within weeks of each other.

It is a testimony to the kind of relationship we had that he took a five hour, red eye flight from Perth after a whole day’s work to come and see Sharmila and me for a day. We had a great time driving around outside Sydney and checking out the Australian fauna. Finally, we settled by the Harbor in the evening and relaxed over a couple of drinks.