A Christmas eclection

This post will have a range of images and thoughts about Christmas in various places and times.  I will start off with a really beautiful image.
This is (obviously)   not Carwoola  but was the image on a beautiful card sent to us from Ingleby Manor where we stayed in June 2010.  These deer were photographed in January 2010 and the owner of the Manor has told that the snow is currently feet deep and that they haven't been able to go horse riding for about 6 weeks!  My idea of heaven!

We decided to have our family Christmas meal on Christmas Eve,  As a nod to the the English tradition of Christmas our daughter bought along a Christmas pud.  The idea was to flame it: I knew from experience that the secret to this was to make sure one used enough alcohol.  So I put on a finger of OP Don Lorenzo rum, noting that it was 151 proof. 

I believe NASA would describe this as ignition:
The New York City Fire Department would call this a 3 alarm blaze.
Surprisingly that didn't set off our smoke detectors.  Back to traditional values!
The pud ate extremely well.  I suspect that it had enough calories to power a Saturn launch (or feed an Indian village for a few weeks).

On Christmas morning we couldn't do deer and snow so made do with a 'roo and sunshine!

Having raised earlier the matter of traditional values,  I can report that, even in the absence of the occupants of the Embassy at Weston (in Hawaii), Frances and I pounded the pavement (OK bitumen) for a while this morning.

In the past our Christmases have tended to be family gatherings in Adelaide unless we were overseas when we do "something interesting'.  If we can include Tasmania as overseas examples that spring to mind include:
  • the caravan park at Boat Harbour in Tassie when Christmas dinner was sme cans of beans (we were surprised to find the posh restaurant in that village had shut down for the holiday;
  • Saadani National Park in Tanzania (both years we were there);
  • Opening our presents on a sand dune in Death Valley (on our way back from Ottawa in 1991;
  • Going to the Bronx zoo in 2006.

We thought we would stay a little closer to home today and visit the Big Hole in Deua National Park.  We had been warned that we would have to wade the Shoalhaven River so were pleased it was a warm day.  Here is Frances being intrepid.
It was a reasonably scenic trek of 1.75km up (and no runner should be surprised to find the word 'up' following on the heels of the word 'scenic') to the Big Hole.  It was rather impressive.
I don't know quite how deep it is but the greenery at the bottom is 2m high tree ferns.  Suffice it to say, should one fall in, one would be rather ill by the time one was looking up at the tree ferns!  The hole was formed by water dissolving limestone underground to form a cavern which collapsed making all the Devonian sandstone descend rather rapidly.

Eucalypts were doggedly clinging to the rim ...
.. while a species of grass new to science Joycea autovulnera (the Suicidal Wallaby Grass) was adhering to the wall.
On the way down we got to enjoy the view ...
.. and the flowers (the first is Pattersonia, identification of the others a work in progress)....













After all this business it was, as another walker said 'refreshing' to get back across the Shoalhaven.
Apart from having a very enjoyable day ourselves, it was pleasing to see quite a few other folk out and about and having a walk on Christmas Day.

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