Thursday 17th September

There must be some days which have more fairy dust sprinkled over them. This was just such a day. The funny thing is that nothing happened that hasn't happened before, it was just it all unfolded like a beautiful gift wrapped in a wrapping of contentment.

Mal made Sue a cup of tea when she awoke like he has done a thousand times before, we had a quiet breakfast with Alison and Bruce - Mal had lit the fire, just a small one to heat some water and wash out the camp oven. All in all it was another slow start to the day. We had discussed, well really planned, almost cast in cement, the idea of driving up to Rainbow Falls in the morning. Alison and Bruce were following through with the plan and were almost all packed up. We suggested just a walk out to Mook Mook - this was finally agreed upon.

The reasons for the change are vague, maybe a bit to do with Bruce not being recovered, maybe Mal and Sue not wanting to pack up and drive anywhere, maybe because everything is dry up here at the moment so the falls would hardly be much more than a trickle. The long and the short of it, we opted not to go.

We popped on our shoes and hats and walked slowly out to the look out at Mook Mook - along the way we spotted insects, small wild flowers, a king parrot that popped by for a look around. The path is quite difficult in parts because they have used a gravel which has hundreds of little spherical stones, like stone age ball bearings. Unfortunately Bruce has a slide on them and we all were unsettled by them, the look out was no where near as treacherous as the path, with its stable floor and robust fence. We had morning tea at the look out and joked about lovers leap, well I hope Sue was joking, then again maybe she was serious, anyway Mal managed to talk her out of going any closer to a serious vertical drop of perhaps 100 meters.

When we had retraced our steps to the creek crossing we turned down stream and followed the creek bed to where it tumbles over the precipice to the rock 20 to 30 meters below. Well Mal found a rock to draw and Sue was photographing flies that were feeding on flowers. Eventually Alison and Bruce took their leave and made their own way back to their camp. We stayed on sharing the magic of the isolation. The sun was warm and on the way back we skinny dipped in one of the few remaining rock pools - the water was bracing and refreshing.

We had lunch in Vicki when we returned home and because the day was warm we shared a cold beer out of our fridge. The warm air, the cold beer and soon we were sleeping like babies as the afternoon sunshine filtered through the forest leaves and peeked in through our window.

When we awoke the afternoon was well advanced and Sue came up with the idea of carrying up some water from the creek and then Mal piped up, second prize goes to him, and suggests we can put it through the strainer and all have nice hot showers, as the on board water was fairly depleted. Well we did just that and later in the evening we did all have a nice hot shower.

Mal lit the fire again and Alison with some help from Sue whipped up a beautifully tasty spaghetti bolognaise. Again we retreated to sit around the fire which contributed quietly to the conversation with a flick of their tongues here and there as the subject required.

Alison and Bruce poked off to bed first and we sat, lingering around the fire, an ancient behavior which melded perfectly into the magical aura that had surrounded our day. It all seems so plain when recalled, however it was a day filled with simple wonder and delight. Thank you Hughie.