As residents of Victoria (Australia) who escaped the terrible bushfires which ravaged our State earlier this year, wiping out a third of our eucalypt forests and taking the lives of almost 200 souls ~ my son and I, out of curiosity, drove up yesterday to the mountains beyond Healesville, through the Black Spur and finally turned back at Marysville, a once beautiful and picturesque township totally destroyed by the fires. We were saddened to see many vacant blocks where lovely homes once stood ~ only the rotary clotheslines were left, looking like forlorn sentinels from happier times. The devastation of our beautiful forests in that region was shocking to see, although regeneration is well on the way with ferns, bracken and new growth softening the landscape again.