WOMBATREVENGEThere's a tranquil Chinese graveyard on the road from Tumutt0Jindabyne on the goldfields just below the snow country ofsouthern New South Wales. The Chinese gold diggers buriedtheir dead there a century and more ago, and now only theleaning, pitted gravestones remain above the old bones offorgotten Chinese. In the moonlight or the light of dawn, it'sa serene and lovely place in which to sit and think. Never go anywhere near it. It's full of dangerous wombats. I used to be fond of wombats. Superficially they arelovable, bearlike creatures that wander gently about at nightmunching harmlessly away at plant roots. The truth is verydifferent. I knew and loved the wombat-haunted graveyard formany years before I learned this truth. Often I camped there among the huge holes that mark theentrance to the wombats' burrows, and saw them emerge atnight to pursue their supposedly gentle way of life. Sitting, looking at the graveyard at night, one inevitablyconsiders the wombats communing with the ancient dead,possibly contemplating skulls and drawing wisdom from them. My fondness for this place led me to describe it to a 9