If you wait under the rivergum where those up-to-no-good Mission-bred kids accidentally hanged Cry-baby Sally, the tip of the dead branch points to where you will see how the serpent's breath fights its way through in a tunnel of wind […].

Punch, said Judy, You're looking moody. Judy, said Punch, I want my lunch.

In the old days, when there was a corrugated iron thunderbox, the Holts' guests were told to approach it with caution: where other thunderboxes had redback spiders, the local ones tended to have taipans.

Will they find the prospect of greater risk a cause for concern, rather than a gift from the right?