It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Dies of Exposure and Gets Eaten by Tasmanian Devils and Mythical Foxes

I held a strategy meeting with my Tasmanian correspondent earlier this week.  Since the sad and lamented passing of Mr Moo I've been having increasing doubts about whether a Tasmanian correspondent is an appropriate waste of this blog's resources.  I indicated to my correspondent that while 15000 word articles on walking her children to school were probably of great interest to her they would not necessarily set the blogging world on fire.  My Belarussian tech support intervened at this point to agree with me.  Apparently while reading her most recent submission they had fallen asleep on a strategically significant button and as a result their homeland had inadvertently invaded Latvia (well, when I say "inadvertently" I mean "three weeks ahead of schedule").

Finally the meeting ended with my telling her that I was no longer prepared to pay for her services.  She pointed out that I didn't pay for them now.  With a point of agreement thus reached I relaxed and asked her about her weekend.  She brightened up immediately, her weekend had been amazing apparently.  She hadn't had such a good time for ages, truly it had been happy and memorable.  I asked her what she had got up to.  She said she went on a two day bushwalk and got lost in the snow.

It occurred to me at this point (not for the first time) that my correspondent and I are two very different people.  I racked my brains for my own experiences of bushwalking, snow and getting lost and then tried to apply the definition "fun" to any of it without success.  I was also a little surprised at the mention of snow.  Yes so I know it snows in Tasmania from time to time, even in November but not often near the bits my correspondent lives in.

As it turns out I was right about that.  My correspondent had traveled to the central highlands of Tasmania to conduct her bushwalking "fun".
"Just a minute," I interrupted her breathless tales of wandering in the icy wilderness in my search for clarification.  "You mean you actively sought out snow solely for the purposes of getting lost in it far from civilisation?"
"Yes," she replied.  "It was awesome."

At this point I was very glad that many hundreds of kilometres separated me from my correspondent.  I also resolved not to go outdoors with her in future.  I could imagine myself trussed up next to a small fire while she sharpened a stick and noted that at least one of us would survive while I begged her to just use the damn emergency beacon.  Apparently she doesn't have an emergency beacon.  Such things are for wimps not attuned to the great outdoors.  I personally have an emergency beacon just in case I get lost on the journey from my bedroom to the bathroom.  I know that's a little excessive; I've only had to use it twice.

Still my correspondent didn't seem to concerned about being lost in the snow.  Apparently she just wandered around until she ceased being lost in the snow.  I wondered aloud if perhaps Tasmania's mythical foxes or completely real tasmanian devils might choose a moment when she was removed from even Tasmania's approximation of civilisation to mass for an attack. My correspondent wasn't worried.  The foxes are small, cute and don't exist.  The devils largely eat carrion, one of the defining characteristics of carrion is the unlikelihood of it wandering through the snow singing a happy song.  I invited her to smell her bushwalking clothes and after a brief pause while she regained her breath and vital signs she did concede that perhaps she might want to take a couple of anti devil precautions the next time she went wandering in the wilderness primordial.

Still this opened a fruitful opportunity.  Would she, I asked, like to be this blog's outdoor activities reporter?  She asked if I would pay her.  At least as much as I pay you now I responded.  Strangely she agreed.