Cirrus@Austlit

'This place doesn't look the way I've expected it to. It's much flatter: in every direction, you can see for miles. It's as flat as a pan, and as dry. The paddocks are yellow and mostly empty, although there is the occasional herd of cows and some sheep. The open ground that hems the road is greener and more densely treed than I'd imagined, with massive silver-trunked eucalypts that have stood here a hundred years and more. The dirt they grow in is rocky, coloured ochre. The sky is huge, brilliantly blue, and uncrossed by birds. It is bakingly hot, and, at midday, shadowless. I don't see any roadkill on the rubbly verge. The train line snakes alongside the farm fences, a scalding, greasy, burgundy vein. The pale grass growing beside it stands as high as the paddock posts.' (Introduction)