Every time I visit the UK I have a slightly disturbing revelation that I forget between times so that it surprises anew every trip. In terms of landscape, I feel much more at home here than in Australia.
The fact is that although I have come to love the bush and appreciate its beauty, this was something I had to learn. It didn't come naturally. 
I have always had an ambiguous relationship with the Australian bush. My first and strongest emotion about it is always fear. The bush is a dangerous place - I completely understand the reaction of early settlers to its mysteries and apparent uncaring vast indifference. I cannot think of anywhere in Australia where I have had an unadulterated sense of delight and ease in a landscape. I have been lucky enough to travel a fair bit down under and have experienced the unique beauty of Kakadu, the Kimberley, the Otways, the tropical rainforest of Northern Queensland, the vast red centre. But appreciating it is always an effort. 
When I am in the countryside in Britain, I don't have to make any effort to respond resoundingly and from the heart to what I see. I am just coming to the end of a week on the Isle of Skye, off the west coast of Scotland, and what I have felt every minute of every day of this week is a sense of home coming. 
My body feels right in this landscape. When I am out in the vastness of the mountains here, I feel I could walk forever on the strength of the water and air alone. In the more domesticated parts, I brim over with happiness at the sheer green softness of it all. Here, everything is mossy, gentle, abundant and wet. I feel like a kid let loose in fairyland. In the bush, everything is spiky, sharp, uncomfortable and dry if not downright dangerous. It's no accident that the Brits have picnic blankets while Aussies have Billabong rugs - we need that hard coating as protection, even if we're simply sitting down having a picnic.
Okay, so the weather is a drawback, especially in Scotland. But here's the thing. This week on Skye, it has been pretty miserable - almost endless windy rain. But I haven't cared. Every day I have gone out walking long miles in the mountains, on islands, on little winding roads so narrow they have to have 'passing places' every hundred yards so that two cars can get past each other, not caring about the rain driving in my face and wind whipping me back the way I came. This weather energizes me. 
I realize, of course, that I am always on holiday when I come to the UK, and that I haven't lived here for an entire winter for a long time. Not to mention the recession and frozen pipes and all manner of things that would wear thin if I lived here year round. But this feeling of complete and instant at-home-ness is so powerful I wonder where it comes from.
Certainly, until I emigrated to Australia at the age of almost twelve, Australia was never on the cards as a place I might live some day. We were always going to live in Ireland when the time came to leave India, so that represented the future.
It also has a lot to do with the poetry and literature I was brought up with. The Lord of the Rings, the Narnia books, Swallows and Amazons, Richard Hannay striding over the Scottish moors with nothing but a sandwich in his pocket as he fled the bad guys. Not to mention poetry that was all about Highlands and Islands, the Lake District, Henry the VIII and the Tower of London, daffodils in an English summer and walks on Hampstead Heath. Australia just couldn't compete.
There's also got to be something in the gene pool you come from. Of my four grandparents, one was German Alsatian and the other three were Celts. They came from Scotland and Ulster, and one thing I've learned this week is that the Scots and the Northern Irish emigrated between each other so often over the centuries, it's hard to tell them apart. And there's something in my physical makeup that feels comfortable with cold damp weather and soft, damp countryside
I am superlatively happy living in Melbourne. Even if I wasn't, I'm  not about to move, not with almost all the people I love best living close by. But when I visit the British Isles, and particularly Ireland and Scotland, I feel as though I've come home, and my heart, or something in my chest that feels like where my heart ought to be, aches with the beauty I find there and the fact that I can't stay.