The Devils do Austinmer by Juilee  Pryor

Well over the last couple of days I’ve been hosting a very cute two headed devil of a creature who goes by the double barreled moniker of Cedric and Beau…..such elegant and refined names who will hence forth to be known as the boys….. Rhana did warn me they would be nothing but trouble but they just looked so cute that I found that very hard to believe…..little did I know…. but I soon found out……

I had expected them to arrive before the easter break but the postie must be doing double time delivering all those lovely tax bonus cheques to everyone that the boys were somewhat delayed….. the first time I saw them was when I came home on Wednesday to find a strange but very inviting parcel waiting for me on the doorstep…..I rushed it inside and broke out my emergency bubble camera…..
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Almost immediately the little dears proclaimed themselves totally tired out from such a long trip and demanded a nap…. and not on the fabulous 70’s retro brown cordrouy sofa or the miner’s lounge out the back…. nope these boys wanted to snuggle up for a little rest on my bed with shaggy ted and little yellow ted…. Ok Ok I thought just this once and after all they are guests so whatever…
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After a refreshing little nap they emerged all happy and full of beans so I took them outside for a little stroll about the garden to scope out the wildlife. I’m not much of a gardener but I do like to grow things like vegies and suchlike. The boys were very impressed with my pumpkin patch and kind enough to not mention the exuberant tangle of undergrowth and other assorted foliage sprouting up luxuriantly everwhere else
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Well it didn’t take long before another resident of my over grown back yard to emerge from the herb garden and sashay over to meet the boys…. so here they are mixing it up with Wilbur the Wild…he’s the garden’s live in personal attack wombat and so the lads and he all got on just splendidly…..no suprises there then…..
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Well after a while Wilbur shuffled along to do his round of the garden beds… the snails around these parts are particularlly antsy this time of year and he has a full time job just keeping the little buggers in line. So the boys came over to help me with some work I was doing. We are having a gorgeous sunny autumn right now and while the sun was out I wanted to get a couple of cyanotypes exposed. So here are Cedric and Beau holding down the glass on the prints I was making…. and a great help they were too….
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and here’s a scan of the little doilies I was making. This one is on it’s way back to Tassie now as a little memento of their great help in the making of these little prints..
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Well it really was such a delightful sunny day and having gotten the work out of the way it really was time for a little stoll down to the beach. The boys assured me that they just loved the beach and a little sand in the fur would be no big deal so we set out for the local beach which is fortunately only a block away…. these guys have great teeth but very short legs. Before we left for the beach though they really needed to be kitted out with a little camera for some tourist type happy snapping of their own
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…..and that little camera they are holding is a real camera just look at the shot they took before we left for the golden sands of Austi beach….
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By now they had the hang of the littlest camera in my collection and were quietly wondering how they could slip in into their baggage for the rest of the journey. Anyhow we meandered off to the beach and sat down to let them get their bearings… shall we go out on to the deep rocky shelf or just go straight over to the rock pools to have a splash about…. the boys insisted on going right out on to the rock shelf even though the tide was coming in and the waves were really crashing in… they are Tasmanians after all and that means they are pretty darn tough…. not much frightens a Tassie devil ..or at least that’s what they told me…. here they are before we went out to check out the rocks and big waves….
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They look pretty happy here before we wandered of to check out the wild bits of the local landscape…..but that sea is mighty deceptive….
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Arghh this is nothing they say… what waves… my goodness …..the way you mainlanders carry on…..
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Well they thought I was just being a total wuss about the savage seas and insisted on going right out on the rocky shelf to really check things out….. which of course was perhaps not a really good idea….coz as soon as they had settled them selves down for a bit of a happy snapping session on a nice warm rock there as a great big swell and…. oh my goodness I can’t believe it but immediately they were like … mauaaaahhhh PICK ME UP…. they really truly didn’t want to get their fur wet so I had to hoist them off the rock shelf and carry them away before the next big wave did exactly that….
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So we headed back to the beautiful sandy beach to have a little sit down and catch out breaths. Before long we attracted a very curious crowd of onlookers who had never ever seen a two headed ball of fur and fury before….
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Now I didn’t think it would be a tremendously good idea if the Cedric and Beau team of race around the world Redbubble Devils got eaten by rabid gulls before they had even left Austi so I introduced a couple of size eight and a half how would you like this up your feathery backsides to the equation and sure enough the flying rats made a quick escape…. a very sensible move too I can assure you…..and the boys were very much in agreement with this strategy…. quite made their day in fact….
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Feeling very peased with the outcome of the gull v devil senario we strolled a bit further up the beach and checked out the rest of the beach… they loved the signage for example and wanted to see if they could make of with this as well….
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I had to explain that it really would not be an even vaugely good idea to make off with the swim between the flags signs and infact they really truly did not want to get tangled up with the local lifeguards. Our beaches are very pretty down under but they can also be hugely dangerous and the consequences of not swimming between the flags or annoying the lifesavers or disregarding their instructions really didn’t bear thinking about…..
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Well it had been pretty hot work hauling these curious visitors along the beach and I wanted to check out the ocean pools and try and intice these guys to come for a swim with me so we wandered along a bit futher were I like to splash about in the relative safety of these three gorgeous rook pools…
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They were quite impressed by the local sea baths but not that impressed… they accompanied me up the walkway between the two big pools and I nearly convinced them to jump in with me… but not quite…..
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But the last of the warm weather is on us and I won’t be swimming for much longer this season so I jumped in for a very quick swim while the boys minded my hat and thongs….
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Ahhh that was just so nice! and even the cranky little furballs were so chilled out by the salty sea air that after my little dip we all went and sat on a nice warm rock for a bit to just take it all in…..
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These guys have had the most wonderful day at the beach … I mean it’s always a success when you don’t get drowned by monster waves or eaten by rabid seagulls so they really were pretty happy and very very relaxed as I think you can tell from this shot…..
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So we all meandered off back to mine and all there was left to do on this practically perfect day was sit in the shade with a cleansing ale and a nourishing lung biscuit and chat about old times and the next destination on their hectic globe trotting journey around the world….
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Ahhh what a wonderful visit it’s been and such fun to have these little guys spend the day with me… so good infact I whipped up a tee shirt to commemorate the occasions…..
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The End