Abstract: In the paper, works of representative Australian writers since the colonial era are selected to interrogate the changing attitudes to 'Nature' or 'the land' from the time of white settlement or conquest to the present. This paper shows how early hopes of creating a new Eden were displaced by preoccupations with survival and 'winning the battle' against a perceived hostile antagonist in an unfamiliar environment. Later appreciation of this 'different' land owed something to a growing understanding of Aboriginal cultural attitudes towards the landscape and inputs from the emerging environmental movement and new literary theory such as ecocriticism of recent years. The growth of cities also provided a 'built' environment which somewhat displaces the preoccupations with the vast inland. Authors referred to will range from Kendall and Lawson through Stead and Katharine Susannah Prichard to Judith Wright and on to John Kinsella. Some poems of my own will also be included.