Another glorious walking day in South Australia. Cool but sunny with clouds coming and going and so far it has rained nearly every night, stopping at 0600 just before my early walk. I called in to the grumpy baker, not open, and not happy, but he opened anyway to sell me a croissant, a present for Corrie whom I kept awake last night with my ‘hots and colds’.

Black Hill (not named as such because of the bushfires) was still black from last year’s fires, with the grass trees making use of the excess water they store up for occasions like this one. They are clever trees and seem to be the personification of the real world, where life and death hang so vulnerably before us all.

All our walks have been quite different: varied in length oscillating loosely between 9 and 12 kms., and path types have changed more than I thought they could. Some were out and return, others a circuit. Today’s walk was a circuit, commencing with an hour long  climb to the summit over boulders and loose rocks (very carefully!) . It was rough and raw and we marvelled at the grass tree led recovery and surrounding bush growth. 

We came upon some people our age who were planting new bushes and plants, who gave us directions on where to walk. Unusual plant talk came in the form of ‘notes’, such as for leaves:  “I am hardy so I’ll protect the soil below me”, and other educational phrases said like humans in the first person.

They also gave us some verbal notes. We are in the habit of asking for challenging paths so they directed us accordingly, sending us off on narrow paths, paths with loose rocks, around cliff faces and through magnificent ghost gum forests.

Then along came Guy. He was shaking his head strongly as though already disagreeing with what we might say. As he shook, he smiled;  his legs were lifted high as in a PD warm up exercise, albeit  at peculiar angles, and some words were a little difficult to decipher. Guy had been born with Cerebral Palsy and every weekend he would walk the most difficult paths he could find; we were lucky to find him on this one. He soon left with these parting words: “this is our life, you don’t get a second go”.