16500 Hectares

16500 hectares of Straddie has been burned, over 60% of the island. You can't help wondering about all those animals out there who didn't escape and those who did now have little food. Six kookaburras were on a branch outside the house today, we occasionally see one or two.

Nothing left.

But life begins again

A Banksia seed pod bursts open with the heat and smoke. A seed locked away in the closed pod pops out (see it unfolding from the pod on the right) and this can only happen after a bush fire, amazing.

Bark paintings 

The odd reminder of man

Singed bracken

Falling from the canopy

Road to the causeway

The causeway, the fire burned off the top of the reeds underneath is the swamp.

Looking across the swamp

A lone wallaby

The hill from the top of our street looking south.

In a few days the grass tree are pushing up green growth.

Hope. Part of this tree was burnt but somehow these blossoms are bursting in the black landscape.