Max and I had a fabulous time together. We packed up my exhibition, yummy dinner at a Moroccan Vegetarian restaurant, and an amazing drive on Sunday. I had visited Kinglake on Friday to go and feel the environment, to grieve and give respect in my own way for what was lost in the fire.

We heard on the radio that they were asking people to come and have a cuppa to get some money back into the community. The drive up to Kinglake was pretty hairy….. without the psychological security of the green guard rail of ferns and heads of trees to keep me on the road. Black slopes were striped with bare vertical sticks and diagonal strokes of rusty brown flowing into the valleys – the water from recent rain trying to carry some of black Saturday away.

The first thing I felt was the colour. It was like the sunlight was coming through the bottom of a beer bottle, each brown leaf a filter for the light, casting a honeyed amber hue on to everything – a glow which was sombre. I saw the land stripped bare. I saw the trees stripped bare. I stood on the dirt and ash and heard the silence. I felt the tenacity of life and saw the evidence of this in the bulging buds of green leaves exploding from the blackened trunks. I felt humbled.