No real news to report, so here's an exercise in style. A little nod to the ever evocative Sniffles.

Yesterday afternoon was spent walking around Beechworth, appeasing my inner historian. One old house had a verandah seamlessly blending into a beautiful garden. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. I stood looking at it for a long time, suddenly conscious of a long ignored desire.

As I withdrew money from a cash machine I remembered that I was in Kelly Country. I wondered what the bushrangers of old would make of ATMs. As the money came out I leant forward and whispered "stick 'em up."

The Beechworth Golf Course was established in 1899. No one was there. After a history touching on three centuries, the course still doesn't have grass on the greens. Just sand, and dirt. Nearby is the enormous cemetery, which probably holds more people than the town does now.

Around Beechworth are lots of properties with "For Sale" signs. Around Yackandandah the signs advertise small building companies. Yackandandah is a tiny town, steadily growing into something else.

The only farms with shiny equipment grow grapes. Wherever there are cows and sheep you also see clumps of incomprehensible machinery, slowly rusting into the earth. One field had camels, and no machinery at all. Nothing shiny, nothing rusted. Just camels. Ships of the desert, watching the road.

A few minutes before dusk I caught sight of the hills nestled around Yackandandah. I'd driven from Beechworth without seeing another car. Fading sunlight on a lonely road.