CHRIS DARWIN IS weeding. His lanky frame, clad in a white shirt, trousers and braces, is folded over the mossy pavers outside the back door of his Blue Mountains home, as he tries to lever out a botanical interloper with the help of a kitchen knife.
A flock of yellow-tailed black-cockatoos glides lazily overhead, screaming their pterodactyl calls as a brown goshawk drifts across the cloudy sky. From somewhere in the dense wet sclerophyll forest nearby comes the whip-crack shriek of a lyrebird.
And yes, his surname hints to a profound legacy. His great-great-grandfather was Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who, in 1831 while in his early 20s, set sail aboard HMS on its mission to chart South America’s coastline. On the voyage Charles collected a dazzling array of fossils, specimens, data and thoughts about how the extraordinary
