This week has been a mixture of emotions. Shock and horror at the devastation of the Australian bushfires, combined with the joy of meeting wonderful, kind, and inspiring people.
One of our aims for this year is to spend some time each month volunteering. Through a friend of ours, photographer Doug Gimesy, we heard that Environment Victoria needed some footage of the bushfire zones in Gippsland, and some interviews with locals affected by the disaster. So, we put our hands up to do the job.
Through this work, we were shown through massive expanses of burnt forest. To be able to stare straight through a forest, and see kilometres of emptiness where there should be trees, is heart-wrenching. The forests were silent. No birdsong, no rustling. Nothing except the occasional whirring of a chainsaw clearing felled trees from the road. So unnerving, and so wrong.
We learned how having a solar energy supply and storage battery had helped one local defend their home even after the grid power went down. For them, the renewable energy was literally a life saver. We met wonderful wildlife carers, whose lives are devoted rehabilitating orphans, and listened to their stories as they cradled and fed their fluffy adopted babies.
We were also fortunate enough to spend some time with Doug Gimesy, who has been working on the front line with fire fighters and wildlife rescuers for weeks. Doug’s work documenting stories, both tragic and uplifting, will be important in raising awareness and educating people about the current disaster in Australia.
The other news we have this week, is our fundraiser raffle! We have donated a trip to Tonga to swim with humpback whales as the main prize! The second prize is an acrylic mounted print “Koala of Kangaroo Island” – a beautiful image by Scott (shown below).
The funds raised from the raffle will be donated to a few independent wildlife carers who we know are doing exhausting and difficult work trying to save lives on Kangaroo Island. The response to the raffle has been so overwhelming, that we may also be able to help carers who have reached out to us from NSW and Victoria where the fires are still blazing in some areas.
So… enter here, before 1st February! You might get to come to Tonga for $20, and if not, your cash will help Aussie wildlife. It’s a win-win situation.
