Dan or Justy

We're in traveling mode. A bit of internet and the macabre Australian Nature Display are the only highlights of the day. The latter was described in our guidebook as a place with tremendous displays of butterflies and other insects, but leaving one with the impression that they had missed the point.

The "Nature Display" is the type of place people had to go to learn about nature before we started preserving it. Everything is dead, and there are lots and lots and lots of them. There are so many dead butterflies, they are used to make wall-sized mosaics depicting other animals. To say it's creepy is an understatement.

But the place is tended to by a sweet old lady. Her (late, I gather) husband did all the collecting. There are many gems (as in rocks) and quite a lot of marine creatures. All are arranged in diorama style, with the taste owing more to an 80s screen-saver than any biological theme.

She really is a nice old lady, but she watches us like a hawk. I'm sure she suspects Justine will snap a picture using her flash, if she is left unmonitored. I try to reassure her, but then catch sight of the hundreds of glass jars containing specimins preserved in formaldehyde. I was a bit entranced for a bit and then, out of the corner of my eye, I realized she was watching me.

With a benign smile, it's true. She offered to show us the clippings she and her husband had accumulated since they opened the "Display" back in 1966. As she was pointing them out, I noticed high on the wall, the 8 foot saw from an obviously prehistoric sawfish. Then I saw the newspaper clipping of the 17 foot sawfish it came from. Caught in 1966. She was smiling at me, patiently waiting for me.

Her husband was an ace birder. He discovered new species. He documented known, but undocumented species. He was self-taught, however, and "never really got anywhere with the boys at uni" as she explained in a mild manner.