Why Babbajin laughs

This dreaming story tells how birds were created when a rainbow shattered into a million pieces. Each small piece of the rainbow had its own special colour, shape and size. Each piece turned into a beautiful bird that was different from all the others. Most of the birds sang with joy as they flew down to earth. They developed beautiful, musical voices which everyone liked to listen to. The other birds cried out in fear. Their voices were rough and hard to listen to. The Kookaburra was so happy as he sat watching the birds that suddenly he burst into laughter. On the ground, the kangaroos stood on their hind legs to get a better view of the beautiful shower of birds. Today the kookaburra is still laughing and the kangaroos still stand on their hind legs. This is why Babbajin the kookaburra laughs…………

What a lovely story, so much better than the creationists can do. I will try and find some more dreaming stories for you if I can. We had a lovely day today and it finally seems as though the weather might have turned. Although it was still very cold when Claire got up at 5am this morning; she even made me put the car heater on when we first set off to the Yarra valley to sample some fine wines. First stop was Yarra Glen for a cup of English breakfast tea and a Devonshire scone; a very civilised way to start to the day. We were trying to go to taste wines at Tarra Warra Estates because I liked the sound of it when doing my research last night but it is closed on Mondays. We stumbled across one called Sticks (www.sticks.com.au ) where we tasted, first the white wines and then the red ones. I was driving so had to spit it out after tasting each one. I have never done this before and I hope that I never have to do it again. For someone like me it’s almost impossible to spit out such a beautiful wine; I don’t think it’s the tasting that’s important it’s the swallowing. Jim and I once had a conversation over a pint about this and the solution that we came up with was to have a pipe coming out your throat so that you could swallow it but not be affected by the alcohol or calories; you could even drink it twice.

There are vines everywhere around the Yarra valley, but again, they were very much affected by this February’s fires and most trees are black around the bases still. We bought a few bottles to bring home for a special occasion and headed off for lunch. Our wine taster recommended the giant steps (www.giant-steps.com.au ) for lunch and circled it on the map that he gave us. It is a very trendy place that sells a selection of local cheeses, has a bakery, wine tasting and serves lunch. It is also quite expensive and we were both unimpressed with our lunches as it seemed that we were back to the tourist food once more. We had both read about Healesville sanctuary and you are made “Wom-en-jika” which means “welcome” in the language of the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians of the land. Healseville started out caring for over 1500 injured or orphaned wild animals each year but has taken on almost a zoo function today to help fund itself. Again, I managed to get a cheap student ticket. We finally saw Skippy! Yippee but its not the same as seeing them in the wild but I guess that Claire wouldn’t have got to stroke a wild one that hadn’t had the thorn pulled out of its foot. A very pleasant day and the sun shone all of it so maybe a beach day tomorrow and we will take our own sandwiches.