june 26: Bush bashing

Its unusual to have "visitors" at my place. The driveway is hidden from the road and is in really poor condition, definitely not accessible for 2WD or low vehicles. So this morning I was surprised to have two visitors to claimed to be "from the police". They said they wanted a fellow seen looking around on a nearby property & showed me a CCTV image. 

I told them I'd seen nothing, so they encouraged me to look out. 

Not until after they left did I twig: I've never heard of plain clothes detectives looking for people that loiter, especially on rural properties, & one of the detectives was Asian. They sounded pretty motivated to nab this fellow. I could be wrong, but I believe he may be a suspect, or Person Of Interest in the disappearance of a local (Asian) resident.  

I had new hiking boots, a desire to make at least some effort to look for May & a curiosity about this fellow, so I grabbed my best dog, walking pole & boots, & camel back, you get the picture. 

I had a recent urge to descend an escarpment on the other side of our road. It drops away so steeply that Council often rebuilds the crumbling roadside. So, down we went. Brandi the cattledog was in her element for a while, but as the grade got steeper she baulked & started crying. I zigzagged off below, careful not to totally lose it & go tumbling into the bottomless gulley below. She quickly realised; its either carry on or go home. She pretty soon hit her stride & came in handy soon after. 

The inevitable happened as I lost footing in lose ground, slid on my backside & quickly slid on said backside between trees, vines & lantana. I couldn't see a better alternative and just kept skittling ahead, as Brandi looked on & reframed her knowledge of what walking the dog looked like. 

As we neared what I jokingly thought was "the bottom" the lantana presented a thick packed barrier. I encouraged Brandi & she zoomed under following either a rabbit or small wallably route through. I squatted & shuffled in that position until I could stoop up again. This lantana forest continued on for may be 70 metres until starting to give way. Round one with the lantana left me with forearm scratches that bled freely. I remembered that lantana doesn't grow so thick under taller trees & made a b-line for those. There I met a new adversary, a plant not really knoen to me in such close quarters before, a slender stemmed darling with large leaves. The edges of which have a gazillion fine stinging spikes that permanently puncture your flesh & snap off. The sting does go away, but now, some 6 hours later, I can't tell when that may be. Under those protective trees were other trees with trunks coated in thorns, same deal, they too enter flesh & break off. A third vine offered similar stimulations which I avoided studiously for a good while before realising it was a waste of time. 

Below to our left I spied the makings of a dry creek bed. A quick thrash through lantana saw us drop into a shady creek bed without water, just mossy boulders but mercifully free of lantana & thorny things. Here it was more dangly vines & fallen trees, but the pain relief worked magic for five minutes, when we met another lantana land maze. This pattern continued for may be 20 minutes before I noticed a folly shaped ridge tocour right. On the way there we came across a little dam & an old steel farm implement that had long ago begun rusting into the earth. It filled me with hope that there may be a yellow brick road to open green fields nearby. Huh, fat chance.

Another lantana laughathon ahead proved to be our last. I turned right them backwards trying to rise above the dam, the water of which looked suitably stagnant. Being young & stupid   Brandi took a good swig, which she paid for later. 

Above the dam we met the lantana belt but only after a forrest of stingies. Funnily enough i realized at that point that a nettle sting on my neck was being particularly onerous before noticing two leaves stuck to my shirt. Oh dear. In the middle of the lantana tangle something straight and grey emerged, barbed wire. There was no clear area along the fence line so we just kept ascending. As the slope began to roll off, we met a trail, soon after a house, then another. What seemed like a kilometre of driveways spat us back onto Black Rock Road, my arms well bloodied. I swigged extra hard on water and breathed out a big sigh. I wasn't anywhere near where I thought I'd be. But I knew my way home. As luck would have it, i passed May's old home. The neighbour Val was checking her mail before passing it on to detectives. I filled her on on my news & we wished May well wherever she be. Vale mentioned that May was suffering dementia but the jury was out & foul play is possible.