Yin and I drove up to Ararat some days ago on a hazy day with clouds filling the sky. Yin wanted to see the memorial museum to the Chinese diggers who first found gold in Ararat, many of whom came from Toi San county, Yin's own area of China.
I'm pleased with these images because that strange hazy light, just as you find in old postcards of 1950s China, is exactly as it was that day. Pure accident that I captured that light.
The exhilaration of hills and trees for miles and miles.
Ararat is narrow and stony and perched up among the hills. You can look down a street and see clouds at the end.
The Gum San Museum was grey and quiet and beautiful. Yin was happy to find a map of his home town there.
Then we went to have coffee and cake at a cafe under the grapevines in the main street before visiting the cemetery.
There was no one else in the cemetery, it was warm and peaceful.
the Chinese section is small and very few memorials remain.
There a few Chinese inscriptions left. Here is one.
Then we drove back home through the same vast, cloudy hills.
And I didn't want the day to end.
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