Eternal reflections on the tip of his tongue

Nicolas Rothwell speaks to a scientist who has found his spiritual centre.

THE AUSTRALIAN - The Nation - Tuesday January 25, 2000 p5

From the Western Desert to the Canning Stock Route, from Sandfire to Coral Bay, the Pilbara's chief ecologist, Peter Kendrick, has an ample empire - but always he finds himself drawn back to the "spiritual centre" of his region, Millstream Park.

Kendrick has loved and learned from this austere landscape for more than a decade.

"These massive statements of geological form, these ranges and valleys, they just go on for hundreds of kilometers, and when you move across them you just feel like a tiny insignificant bubble," he says.

"This is one of the oldest parts of the Earth's surface. It was made 3.5 billion years ago, and you have this sense it's been sitting here eroding away for ages."

...

"Everybody needs to anchor themselves somewhere and, as a molecular biologist, I find it very comforting to anchor myself in these ancient hills - to know that there are things much bigger than us, that our poor old continent will go on drifting about without us in time, and it will all be all right in the end."

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