3rd January - central highlands

Saturday 3^rd January 2015

Way over thirty degrees today – hard to cope with, after so much coolness!

We have gone up to the lakes, to stay the night with John and Catherine in their lakeside house at Highland Waters. 

Hard to pick if there is a more beautiful dog than a golden retriever…and right on the doorstep there are two, Billy and Webber.  They are both charming and amiable but one of them has to be tied up when they are not under direct supervision  otherwise they rush off joyously into the bush with not much of an exit strategy. In the past two months Webber, for example, has been missing for eleven long LONG (non-consecutive) days…

The lake looks so pretty, edged with tall forest trees, dotted with birds – swans, and invasive Eurasian coots.  But…there are too many birds; they are polluting the clear lake.  The coots dig up with pond weed and it rots nastily along the waters edge.  The coots need to be eradicated; the swans need to be culled – nothing is ever quite as it seems…

Michael has gone – back to Townsville, to get ready for another overseas deployment.  He came to visit with Nic, his best mate down through the decades.  Nic is still working as a police officer; he is always good for a nasty story or two.  For example – if you were a seventeen year old girl trying to conceal a stolen iPhone 5 – now where would you stash it? Oh dear and oh no, YES she did!  The police, wearing latex gloves, retrieved the phone and contacted the owner, saying, Well we have found your phone but we are not sure if you will want it back…

Mick and Nick