Christmas with the Devils

Lovely undulating back roads through NSW Tablelands and the edges of Wollomi National Park took us to Canberra. First we had to stop and gawp at the Golden Guitar in Tamworth. We made rather slow progress as we kept stopping to rescue turtles from the middle of the road.

In Canberra, we were lucky to be guided through the old parliament building by Malcom Mackerras, a psephologist (that is someone who studies election results), and used to be a political commentator on the ABC. David kept encouraging him to more and more obscure analysis of the Australian political system and was duly impressed by the depth and lehgth of his answers while the other members of the party....But we all liked the story of the MP who in 1927 was asked his opinion of the new federal capital declared :"good sheep country spoiled".

We also visited the Deep Space Centre at Tidbinbilla, with huge dishes pointed at the sky and lots of space and NASA memorabilia. The introductury leaflet said the Aboriginal name means "where boys become men", Cecile thinks they got it wrong and it should read the other way round.

We screamed down the Hume Highway to the Holbrook Ultralight Aviation Museum only to find it closed. Cecile was SO disapointed. But she did get very excited on spotting the Lost Dog ambulance, as her daughter Julia designed the pictures for the vehicle.

We briefly caught up with rellys in Melbourne before catching the Spirit of Tasmania. Bass Strait was like a mill pond and we are now in deligthfully cool Tassie.

Christmas morning was spent walking around Lake Dove in Cradle Mountain. After the paucity of old buildings in the Top End we love driving around picturesque villages. Cecile wants to adopt a Tasmania Devil, after visiting a wildlife shelter and watching six juvenile Tassie Devils tearing the top half of a wallaby to pieces and devouring it, bone, fur and all, in a very short time.

Merry Christmas to you all from Cecile

Ba humbug from David.