The display of autumn colours with leaves of red, gold, russet, ochre and crimson is spectacular.

The soft greys and greens of the native eucalpts and coniferous trees balance the colours. Autumn is a tonic of chilly nights and morning fogs, with cool and sunny days, interspersed with bleak periods of dark clouds, chill winds and heavy rains.

On Sunday, we awoke to a dew-spangled mornings and a golden sheen of a day. It was one of those brilliant autumn days when the world gleamed like something new-made. The sky was pale blue, clean and bright. Our breath puffed great silver clouds in the cold air. Later in the day as the evening mist rose and the failing sunlight turned into dusk, a cracking fire kept away the night chill with its bright gold, glowing red embers. As the birds winged their way to their nests swooping and diving through the still dusk the sun touched the sea pooling like molten brass on the far horizon. The night breeze whispered through the gum leaves. I listened to the night sounds of the chirruping sparrows, thrushes and blackbirds and the scream of a departing cockatoo and the shifting of the leaves and the tick and creak of swaying branches as a possum rustled furtively in the gum leaves above my head. Today a dense grey fog has wrapped the land in a clotted mass as thick as wool, which never quite lifts. Later this morning it rains from pewter filled sky.