Stories about wonder, fireworks and vegemite

The Australian letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australian bureau. To register to receive it by email. This week’s issue is written by Natasha Frost, a reporter in Melbourne.

At The New York Times, we call it “counterprogramming”: stories that can provide relief to readers exhausted by tales of hardship, danger and bitterness.

These stories come from Australia and New Zealand a little more often than you would expect. The countries, like everywhere else, have their own challenges, and we are tackling them too. But one of the great pleasures of covering this region, as my departing colleague Yan Zhuang wrote last week, is the ability to write about joy, beauty and wonder.

Here are stories from the agency that you may have missed over the past twelve months.

• Tens of thousands of tourists came in March descended into the small town in Western Australia from Exmouth for a rare total solar eclipse, one of the few places where the spectacle was visible from land.

• Caroline Kennedy, the US ambassador to Australia, celebrated and commemorated the life of John Josepha black American gold prospector buried in 1858 who helped establish Australian democracy.

• In central Australia, a visitor learned what Indigenous managers and conservationists are like working to protect an ancient land and its animal inhabitants.

• For the first time in living memory, the kiwi, New Zealand’s national bird, has hatched eggs in the wild in the Wellington area, thanks to a multi-year conservation effort.

• Melbourne, home to thousands and thousands of urban bats, installed custom designed showers to help these fox-faced creatures cool down on dangerously hot days.

• Early in the year, a Japanese tourist going through Uni set out on an unlikely journey. a journey of more than 2,000 miles through Australia on a children’s scooter. “I thought it would be a good challenge,” he told us. (He has reached its destination by June.)

The Australia Letter is taking its annual summer break. We will be back in January. In the meantime, enjoy the holidays — and don’t hesitate to do so send us your own examples of antipodean wonder.

Here are the stories of the week.

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