This reminds me of the letter that Charles Darwin wrote from Albany, Western Australia, when he briefly visited in 1836:
"We staid (sic) there eight days and I do not remember since leaving England having passed a more dull, uninteresting time," he wrote.
"He who thinks like me will never wish to walk again in so uninviting a country."[0]
The south-west of Australia, the country of the Noongar people, is now recognised as a world biodiversity hot-spot. And yet Darwin couldn't see it: he had no sense of this place, despite his vocation as a naturalist and scientist.
"We staid (sic) there eight days and I do not remember since leaving England having passed a more dull, uninteresting time," he wrote. "He who thinks like me will never wish to walk again in so uninviting a country."[0]
The south-west of Australia, the country of the Noongar people, is now recognised as a world biodiversity hot-spot. And yet Darwin couldn't see it: he had no sense of this place, despite his vocation as a naturalist and scientist.
[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-04/what-charles-darwin-m...