Snow Patrol

There's Powder On Them Thar Hills (Already)

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

This photograph should give you a clue as to my whereabouts today. If you want a few extra seconds to work it out, let me give you some more information. I'm not in Melbourne. I'm not even in Australia. Have a good look at the traffic in this scene (I took the shot through the windscreen of a four-wheel drive) and you'll notice that we're driving on the right-hand side of the road.

Did you say the United States? Not quite. I'm in northern Canada, in the Yukon, a place that touched my soul the first time I came here, nine years ago. I left Melbourne before dawn on Wednesday morning, flew to Sydney on Qantas and caught an Air Canada flight to Vancouver before catching a connecting flight further north to Whitehorse, capital city of the Yukon.

There's something very special about seeing sunrise twice in one day, over two different countries. I saw one dawn as I flew from Melbourne to Sydney, and then I was privileged to witness Wednesday start all over again with soft tinges in the sky just before we landed in Vancouver.

Here in the Yukon, the colours are starting to change already. You know you're in a cold place when the captain announces the impending touchdown by telling you the temperature in Whitehorse is (and I quote) "Plus nine degrees". And so here I am in paradise, surrounded by mountains and as the low cloud starts to clear just after I arrive, I suddenly see that the first snow has already fallen.

Let's just call it a personal welcome-home sign.

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