Doona Days in Dartmoor

At Wannan Falls a couple of days ago, I met Kim and Germaine. They run a caravan park at Falls Creek and are on a busman's holiday, caravanning and camping for a few days. They suggested a stop at Dartmoor - and here I am. The town is quite small but provides a large camping area beside the creek. There were probably a dozen rigs here last night and they are starting to roll in again for tonight. I wandered up to the town today and had a coffee (surprise!) and a toasted sandwich. I haven't bought bread since I left home and appreciate a sandwich from time to time.

Like the memorial sculptures I saw in Tasmania, the town has a series of sculptures, carved from trees planted as a memorial after World War 1. As the trees became dangerous and likely to fall or break, an avenue was carved depicting images of the great war - soldiers, a nurse, a weeping mother, a group of young men - not really old enough but going to war anyhow, a sentinel gun for those who didn't return. These were all carved with chainsaws - perhaps by the same sculptor who did those in Legerwood, Tas.

  Down the road at the Village Green, another tree has been carved in the kids' playground with an assortment of fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters.

 It is so very quiet and peaceful here that I have set up both my awnings, side and back, and settled in for a couple of Doona Days. I have just finished a Barbara Taylor Bradford book that has taken me more than a week. Last night I sat around a campfire with Liz and Marty and their dog Bonnie. Liz gave me a book called 'The Inconvenient Child' by Sharyn Killens and Lindsay Lewis. It is the true story of the abandoned child of an Australian girl and a black African American marine and her quest to find her American family. I have just started it and am totally enthralled. If I spend another day here lazing around, I will finish it tomorrow. I might sit and knit for a bit as well.