A belated Merry Christmas... blame it on the weather? Or a broken bush telegraph?

My In Box has been inundated with belated Christmas messages these past couple of days, so like my slack, um, I mean busy friends, I'm going to say better late than never and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a magic New Year. I'd like to be able to blame my tardiness on the weather. Because we have had horrendously bad weather wherever we've been in Australia. From the top end of the country to the southernmost tip of the mainland. It's to blame for our itinerary being so completely out of whack. Along with a mishap or two - like getting caught in flash foods, which you can read about at Terry's blog Wide angles, wine and wanderlust, and which I'll write about more soon. I could also argue the generally pathetic communications here is at fault, which in my case is very easy as I've continually experienced them all, from mac.com sending messages into cyberspace (or outerspace it seems) to excruciating slow connection speeds, to cell phones that don't work outside cities and towns. And does anyone actually use those 'internet kiosks'?! Australia's telecommunications system is archaic. But I guess in Turkey the were delivering packages to the wrong addresses, in Dubai my replacement credit cards are sent to places I haven't lived or worked in years, and the USA, well they still post people cheques (checks, to my American readers), yep, on paper... We've experienced them all this year. But, no, in this case, we really were too busy to send Christmas cards, e-cards, even email. As you'll notice from my lack of posting in December and November, I haven't had much time for blogging, or much time for anything other than travelling. We've been doing research and shooting photos in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia, rising at dawn most days, spending all day on the road, driving hundreds of kilometres a day (and then some), eating dinner, then downloading images and re-charging batteries etc in preparation for it all to begin again the next day. It's been tough. We've spent a lot of time in the outback, on remote red-dust roads and corrugated bush tracks, driving through immense desolate landscapes for hours without seeing another person. We've only stopped to take photos, fill the fuel tank, drink tea from the thermos, make some lunch, and enjoy the silence. Because for much of the trip it's just between us and... well... the lizards, the kangaroos, some emus, lots of birds of prey, brumbies (wild horses), ferry donkeys, a dingo or two, oh, and some pretty cute koalas. I hope you'll all forgive me.