((link)): Winter Months In Australia

She pocketed the phone and set off down the dirt track toward the old woolshed. The winter months in this part of South Australia were quiet—tourists gone, days short, nights long enough to read an entire novel by the woodstove’s glow. But there was a rhythm to it she had come to love. The kangaroos came lower in search of grass, their breath misting in the paddocks. The resident koala in the river red gum slept even more than usual. And every evening, the cockatoos screeched their raucous goodnight as the sun, low and weak, dipped behind the Mount Lofty Ranges by five o'clock.

“That’s just the Southern Ocean saying hello.” He straightened and handed her a mug of black tea. “Solstice today. Shortest of the year. Means every day from here gets a little longer.” winter months in australia

Outside, the winter solstice light began its early fade. The hills turned violet. A single kookaburra laughed somewhere in the gloom—not at the cold, Maya decided, but with it. She pocketed the phone and set off down

Maya zipped her fleece to her chin and stepped onto the veranda of the old cottage. The temperature read four degrees Celsius—nothing by Canadian standards, she knew, but this damp cold was a different animal. She pulled a knitted beanie over her ears and smiled. Two years in Australia, and she still couldn't get used to a winter solstice without a white Christmas. Instead, the vines across the valley were bare skeletons, the grass a faded khaki, and the sky a low, bruised pearl. The kangaroos came lower in search of grass,

And in the valley, winter held on, not with a roar, but with a long, slow, beautiful breath.

“You miss the snow?” Hugh asked.

Maya thought about it. “Sometimes. But I think I’d miss this more if I left.”