 
### Table of Contents

Title Page

Praise for Drifting Down the Darling

Disclaimer

Map

First bit

PART 1 - 2010

PART 2 - 2011

PART 3 - 2012

Last bit

Acknowledgements
PADDLING  
down the  
DARLING

Tony Pritchard

This is an IndieMosh book

brought to you by MoshPit Publishing  
an imprint of Mosher's Business Support Pty Ltd

PO BOX 147  
Hazelbrook NSW 2779

<http://www.indiemosh.com.au/>

Copyright 2017 © Tony Pritchard

All rights reserved

Cover design by Peter Harris

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

This story is entirely a work of fiction. No character in this story is taken from real life. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is accidental and unintentional. The author, their agents and publishers cannot be held responsible for any claim otherwise and take no responsibility for any such coincidence.
The book before this one is called _  
Drifting down the Darling_

In 1976, I drifted over a thousand miles down the Darling River in western New South Wales in a ten-foot boat. I had no motor or oars, and the trip took around eighteen months. I went fishing and birdwatching, I stopped at towns, did a bit of station work, met some of Australia's finest people and all the while looked for adventure and answers to life's question about where I belonged.

This journey, including its adventures, its love story and its attempted unravelling of a quest is told in _Drifting down the Darling_ , published in 2015. It's a slightly crazy recount, and one that is perhaps still unfinished.

Here are some comments on _Drifting down the Darling_ that are all true.

Your writing has many layers which provide the reader with not only prosaic descriptions of your physical journey, but equally important a vision into your personal world. This honest flow of memories and emotions and how you blend it with your journey is really quite magical. Simple parts of your story take on larger meanings, like your description of laying flat on your boat as you glided under a low bridge. Lonely, adrift and unsure...you put me in that scene. Probably most of us.

Thomas Harty, Buffalo.

I met Thomas on kibbutz Ginosar not long before I went down the river (about a year I think it was). It's like, if I saw him tomorrow (which would be approximately 40 years since the last time,) the conversation would carry on from where we left off. There we'd be having a beer and Thomas would say, 'So Aussie, why did you think for a minute we could climb Mt Arbel?'

I found _Drifting down the Darling_ an intriguing insight into the mind of a lost soul as he sought the meaning and purpose of not only his life but life in general. In choosing the solitude and peace of the magnificent Darling River, Tony meets with the generosity and honesty of real Aussies in the outback. A brutally honest interpretation of life as Tony drifts from the present, to past demons, as he openly seeks his purpose in being. A great read especially if one enjoys the humour and playfulness of the genuine Aussie.

Robert Shanks, Dubbo.

Robert and I played rugby league for Dubbo Macquarie. He was really speedy and did all my tackling. Thank you Robert.

After much consideration & conflicting advice from family, friends & complete strangers on the street, I have enclosed a review of Drifting Down the Darling. Also my shrink said by speaking of & getting it out in the open I should recover from the unfortunate experience of meeting you.

I thought my mind was warped, but you are completely insane mate. From that fatal error of dining with you at the Port of Bourke Hotel, attending your book launch, then finding out you're from West Dubbo & went to South Dubbo High, I feel the Gods have dealt me a rather savage blow. Praise the Lord I was unaware of all this while on the Poets Trek, otherwise I may have had an inclination to swan dive off the top of Mt. Oxley. The only saving grace being that I was younger & so evaded a fateful meeting with you. By the time I had moved to Dubbo you had not only left town but also the country itself. Mental anguish for decades was delayed but in the end there was no avoiding you. You paddled down the Darling and had adventures and I was flung headlong into your book, all the time drifting in & out of the real world & sanity for that matter. I'm now being bombarded with your demented texts & emails. Is there no escape? At times I find myself waking from a stupor in the foetal position while dribbling & muttering incoherently. You're probably lucky our family didn't reside by the river in your travels, as if you would've glanced sideways at one of my older sisters my old man would've accidently on purpose shot you like a mongrel dog, disposed of your body and you would never have been found. I'd say most of the wildlife of those areas had a blissful existence cohabitating with each other in tranquil surroundings & only turned feral after having their peace shattered by a half crazed & naked ex-pigeon racer deciding he wanted to do a Harry Butler in the wild. All of those poor animals traumatised just so you could get back to nature and find your inner self. You also have to consider the scarred minds of citizens who had the misfortune of bumping into you along the way. Some may still be reeling from the brief & unavoidable encounter they had.

As for your current jaunts around the countryside of New South Wales, all towns & communities have been forewarned of your impending arrival, so if you find yourself being handcuffed & quickly ushered out of town you'll know why. You have my permission to quote any of the above ramblings in the pursuit of fortune & fame. If questioned I shall immediately deny all of it. My only request it that my real name is never to be used, I have never had any association with you in the past, present & with a bit of luck not the future either. You are one sick little puppy. In saying so, not a bad sort of a bloke to have an ale & chat with, you crazy bastard! Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys.

Lawrence H. Freyburn.

Lawrence writes well. He's probably a poet.

# Disclaimer

This book is my version of experiences before, during and after paddling down the Darling River from Menindee to Wentworth in 2010, 2011 and 2012. My recollections are occasionally factual. I have made a huge effort to make contact with those I met (or their descendants, estates or next-door neighbours) to ask for permission to use names, places and events. If I have misquoted you, spelt your name incorrectly, or said things about you I maybe shouldn't have, I apologise. I have also changed a few names because I don't like being threatened or thumped. To use information from books, songs, poems, photos, various artworks, websites and the odd piece of graffiti from the side of buildings, I have attempted to contact all copyright owners. Any responses have been generous and I thank you all. Errors in facts, opinions, or what actually happened, are unintended but still mine. If you see any, please don't tell me.

TP

Map courtesy of Brayden Dykes  
from the Murray Darling Basin Authority

# First bit

This is a story of three trips on the Darling River in Western New South Wales. I paddled a fifteen-foot canoe from Menindee to Wentworth in 2010, 2011 and 2012. **** In the seventies when I drifted down the Darling in a ten-foot flat-bottomed boat, I turned right after Menindee and went down the Great Anabranch until I reached the Murray River and so missed out on that final leg of the old river from Menindee to Wentworth. So here now is that last bit of the Darling, done three times in case I missed something.

I thought I had moved on from the Darling River, particularly after living next to the rainforest for fifteen years followed by a move to Brisbane. And even though the Darling called out to me, I did my best to close my ears. I don't know why I continually delude myself, it never works.

As well as seeking adventure, I went looking for God. How dumb is that? I mean, why wasn't he down at the corner shop where I go and buy two litres of milk every Tuesday? Why would I think that sitting in a canoe for five-hundred kilometres would be a way of finding the old bloke with the white beard? And at which point along the journey might this happen? Anyway, why had God become just another notation on a list of things to do instead of life's main focus? The God I searched for was not involved in any religion because of the corruption, bullying, murder, deceit, abuse and demeaning of others used as a means of fostering enlightenment. (Or have I just put too much emphasis on the positive?) My God would be pure love, and have a kindness of giving so beautiful that it would transcend earthly day-to-days (although include them occasionally, particularly when the dishes were piled up) and he would never yell at me. Or give anyone permission to do not nice things to me, again. Ever. Nor would he live in stone buildings with exclusive access. I was secretly hoping Jesus (not so much his old man) was everything. But then, why didn't he do stuff that we all do? I would have warmed a bit if he would have had, you know, teenage anxieties, been married, had kids, dealt with a middle-age crisis (or two), been divorced and then remarried. Instead we get what, a bloke with limited free will already assigned a role?

I realised that to search for something, for example, the relatively easy concept of finding God, (which indicates that he was lost. I hoped he knew this.) was to also find other somethings along the way, because when you do strive for a particular something, these other somethings can possibly give you more benefit and create more truth than the original sought after something. (I had to read that twice.) Or maybe the original searched for things were always close anyway?

In 2010, the excitement of returning to a low Darling River after thirty years was tempered by the knowledge that I would get lonely. Not talking about, 'Yeah I miss you hun,' I mean the type that stops you from breathing. A loneliness that has been an occasional visitor and one who has made it hard to do the daily routine, let alone gaze in awe at the marvels of your favourite place on the planet. I see now that I may have predisposed myself, but does prediction always equal a given or is it merely a recognition of self-understanding? I suspect it's a little of both. And along with being on the old river with its pigs, fish, birds and characters, I made the life-changing decision to retire from teaching and attempt to write a book. Not this one; the one before called _Drifting down the Darling._ This one came later. But you knew that.

The 2011 trip was completely different to 2010. For starters, the last number is different. Because of the summer of heavy rainfall in South-East Queensland, which is where the old river gets pretty much all of its water from, the Darling was over its banks. (Queenslanders, despite their two heads and myopia that make parochial seem worldly, are a generous and sharing people/s.) Riding a flood has many perils but the most dangerous thing on the Darling in 2011 was bulldog ants. Please do not doubt me here. Not saying I would ever take a flooded river lightly, and certainly not the Darling in any of its phases, but those ants are vicious, double-crossing, and cruel. Sort of like those in the hunt for the iron throne. If you were around in that era, and you didn't play the game of deceit and favour, your head would be on a stick. Me, I'd have to keep a list.

  1. Threatened to kill the Hound. (seriously reconsider)

  2. Lied to Cersei. (don't go near the castle thing ever again. Actually, book a plane ticket real soon)

  3. Back-answered Joffrey. (immediately following morning tea, take the wee coloured pills that are sewn in the lapel)

  4. Visit the blonde one. Just to see how she's going. That's all.

I discovered a story about some cranky shearers, a fishing rod of great personal value was taken from me, (probably one of them bloody Lannisters) and below Pooncarie I experienced an uplifting Easter, the significance of which was as much to do with Jerusalem as it was with campers. Anyway, they are all crooks, the Lannisters - except for the little bloke. Red wine and red cellophane over the lights may yet make an interesting leadership alternative. In Australia I mean.

When it became 2012, well I couldn't stay away. If I had been watching cricket, I could have said May the fours be with you. I should have been doing many other things; like trying to write a book about the seventies river trip and not spending my limited superannuation on chocolates, magazines sealed in plastic, and DVDs of crime series. Or learning new jokes. But what can you do when your addiction kicks in? (One day they'll invent a patch for reducing these cravings. I'd take it for sure. For the old river, not the other things.) I rode a 7,000 ML a day release from Menindee Lakes and reflected on life, nankeen night-herons and water rats. I met Bill and Barb Arnold from Bindara Station, I reconnected with a lovely man from Pooncarie, and I met Jodie Treverrow, a school principal whose grandfather had taught me, my older brother and my father. And I fell in love with Wentworth. Again.

And as I strived and questioned on these three canoe adventures, I slid from lunacy to the serious, from the happy to the lonely, and from the erratic to the lame joke. Occasionally all of the above were done in reverse. Being alone on the river, apart from the aforesaid hints at periods of loneliness, was an okay time. Apart from bird calls, kangaroo hops and bat squeaks, solitude is usually quiet, but often when I talked with myself, it often got too noisy. Way too many people talking at once. I discovered that in life's musings, if you ignore the truth you know is right, it doesn't go away. It just ducks behind the back fence and waits until you are ready to acknowledge its point. This is called being true to yourself and I think I'm almost ready to start an apprenticeship. Along the way I also remembered how to absorb the beauty of simple stuff on the river and I learnt how to reflect on personal gratitude with an acceptance of what I had, not what I didn't have. 
PART 1

# 2010

# 1

I shall slip in by way of Cairo and fulfil a dream I have had since I was a small boy; who used to imagine that he was going to Africa as soon as his trunk was packed for school.

From _African Sanctus_ by David Fanshawe.

Driving from Wentworth to Menindee with Geoff Metcalfe the mailman (and my canoe and gear) as he delivered mail, newspapers and tractor parts, was like revisiting childhood with its exciting freedom and blurry pictures. Maybe I needed new glasses. Geoff painted a canvass of bush stories, which did present some difficulties while he was driving, while I had a few glimpses of my Darling River, all low and winding around its clay banks. We stopped at Palinyewah Public School, which became important at the end of this trip as well as the next two, dropped in to Pooncarie, and then we arrived at Menindee.

As we unloaded the canoe just above the town, Geoff looked at me and pursed his lips (I've always wanted to do that) then slowly shook his head like people do when they think you're crazy.

'Pritchard, you're crazy.'

'As I thank you for your keen observation Geoff, which I might add has been pointed out many times previous and one which I can neither confirm nor deny, I'm guessing you'd like to come down the river too?'

'No, Tony, I have a truck.'

We each dream of different things, and isn't the world a better place for it. We wouldn't want everyone pursing their lips at the same time.

In 1975 I watched a documentary on David Fanshawe's _African Sanctus_ and subsequently bought his book of the same name. And so it was that this book, apart from giving me great initial enjoyment, later caused me grief and wonder (not to mention humility) pretty much simultaneously. A friend was in a choir that was practising for _African Sanctus,_ and she asked if she could borrow my copy, just to brush up on the story. Of course, I said.

A few days later she said, 'Hey, sorry, but I have misplaced your book.'

Now usually, I am okay with borrowed books that have been lost. I mean, you loan, you give, you expect losses, that's how it goes. Otherwise it's not true giving. We all know this. However, I said, rather indelicately, 'You what! You are kidding me!' And I muttered, rizzle, rizzle.

Two days later, she said, 'Hey guess what? I found your book.' I snatched my possession and had a couple of disparaging thoughts. Years later, when I had almost got over myself, I happened to flick it open. In the front, David Fanshawe had left not only his signature, dedicated to me, but had written a story in itself. A drawing, many words, and the comment, 'I love this world.' How was I supposed to know that David Fanshawe went to many of the performances of his work? David Fanshawe was an amazing man. Eccentric for sure but so wonderfully excited about traditional music and life. To my shame, I have had no success in contacting my choir friend. Not one of my proudest moments.

The Darling River was my African adventure; where's yours when you pack your port for school?

After I had escaped the suburbs of Menindee, I set up camp and cooked a damper, my first one for thirty-three years. One kilo of self-raising wholemeal flour will do me three dampers. Add a handful of sultanas, some olive oil and water. Mix but don't over mix, sprinkle flour on the bottom of the camp oven so she doesn't burn the bum off the damper. Best to cook it separate from the actual fire because it's usually too hot in there. So I scraped away coals with the fold-up army shovel which was folded out, placed the camp oven on top, and shovelled coals on and around it. I tell you, this is real food. Don't normally have a cup of tea of an evening because it makes me want to pee during the night. But tonight was special. Damper, butter and vegemite. What else could a man wish for? Lots of smiles tonight.

In the bush, Rule #1 is, if you wake up then you get up. (There are several other rules too, like, Make sure you pack enough coffee, which I hadn't, and I ran out just before Pooncarie.) If you do go back to sleep you will re-awaken with sand in your eyes and cobwebs in your head. There's a man puts them there. He travels in the bush of Australia looking for people who have snuggled back to sleep. It's actually Santa's job during the off season. So around late December it would be safe to go back to sleep.

It was dark when I got up, initially to answer the call from that late cup of tea, but I was wired up anyway. Even the icy cold could not quell the excitement of being on the Darling again. I had a tarp covering leaves and twigs and this kept the dew away so I could be ready to light a breakfast fire with dry kindling. I had the canoe packed and it was still dark and was for a long while after as I sat in the canoe tapping my foot. Had my arms folded too. God only knows why or what time I got up. Maybe it was a fear of Santa. No matter, I was still grinning. ****

My Rosco Chief canoe, designed and built in Brisbane, is sleeky bright red, and I know will always be there for me. I have since hit logs, rocks and several living creatures, and it is still safe and strong, and therefore so was I. One day I got stuck on a knob. Logs do that, they put knobs just under the water that are so dangerous they would split an aircraft carrier, but not this canoe. The bottom protruded into a point and the canoe actually bent like a wet hanky. I panicked and lent backwards, forwards, sideways, then backpaddled, cried and swore, but I made it. After my relief of not breaking up and sinking in a Darling River hole (they are so deep they go to the centre of the earth) the exact same thing happened ten minutes later. Think I'd watch where I was going.

A loaded canoe sits better and is easier to handle than an unloaded one. I recently went for a paddle on a Brisbane reservoir just to retest this assumption. A pretty place full of birds (think: white-breasted sea-eagles, pheasant coucals - surely the missing-link between dinosaurs and birds - cicadas that sound like birds, birds that sound like cicadas, jacanas and waterhens), lilies and long grass surrounded by eucalypt ridges and wet gullies. **** In the canoe was myself and a thermos of coffee. I had forgotten how difficult it was to paddle, not to mention stay in, an unloaded canoe. It was bloody awful. With me and my fat bum in the back, the canoe reared up at ninety-degrees. A perpendicular tissue paper, not wanting to be controlled. Then just to make it more interesting, a wind whipped up as I headed back. You don't stand a chance in a loaded canoe when a strong wind blows, so in a canoe that sits on the water like a piece of bark, look out.

For this trip, my load was three 60 litre plastic drums, a plastic storage box and sundry items. These drums are mankind's saviour (much more important than computers, a Hill's Hoist or a coffee-maker); they are waterproof, strong, and best of all, they fitted in to the canoe perfectly. One at the front longways, one across the front seat and one across the middle just below the middle crossbar.

Drum # 1

Fishing gear (about a small daypack size), aspirin, medical tape, spare glasses, anti-nausea pills, anti-biotics, Betadine, Noroxin, anti-inflammatories, cloths, gloves, blood pressure pills, salt, anchovies, chocolate, Papaw ointment, frozen beer, spare zinc cream 50+, chest puffer, liniment, anti-fungal cream, head lamp and spare batteries, matches x 2, cold and flu capsules, biros and notebooks, triangle, stretch bandages, toothpaste and brush, floss, Piksters, soap, throat lozenges, toilet paper, moisturiser, back roller, repellent, rubber bands, whistle, strapping tape, duct tape, sticky tape, tape tape, pretty-coloured pills sewn into a lapel, and a tablespoon of luck.

In the seventies trip down the river the first-aid/medical items consisted of a packet of Band-Aids, a pair of pliers and two lengths of number-eight fencing wire. On this trip (and at least the next nine) one 60 litre drum just managed to accommodate the medical paraphernalia, some of which was needed to keep me alive (inc. blood-pressure pills, two notebooks and four rolls of duct tape). The rest was a conglomerate of what might be - anti-this and anti-that, possibly-neededs and a few packets of you-never-knows - proving that either I was a smart traveller, or a paranoid old person.

Drum #2

Freeze-dri packets, avocadoes, salami x 2, tomatoes, fruit, carrots, butter, cheese (not much), matches, chocolate, brown rice cereal, powdered milk, chocolates, Vegemite, honey, coffee, scroggin, cous cous, brown rice, polenta, dried tomatoes, dried beans, olive oil (at least fifty litres), jam, Italian herbs, cumin, dukkha, zaatar, books, flour, sultanas, red lentils, tea, crackers, sardines, spare maps.

If there's no wildlife on the menu, and cooking wild meat is my preferred option, then from the above selection I could make a wholesome feed. For example, if I am tired and get into camp late, with no time to soak the brown rice, a freeze-dri option is great. Hiking food has improved incredibly. Or I might make couscous then add wild greens and grated cheese. There is an inverse ratio that is yet to be introduced to nutrition, science and mathematics, that states that the fitter you are, the less you eat. Trust me. If I make camp early, black-eyed beans (which have been soaked beforehand) butter and dried tomatoes are pretty powerful. The crackers and sardines are for those times when it rains for years without stopping or if there's a fire ban.

Drum #3

Compressed foam, space-blanket, tent, toilet paper, spare clothes (to use if I was a guest, otherwise what I wore was it), karabiners, pillow, phone charger, camera charger, spare batteries, plate, stainless steel bowls, cutlery, tea towels, chopping board, more chocolates (seriously), 4L water sack, tablecloth, extra-sharp knife, sharpening stone, insurance policy.

The tent had a heavy-duty floor, I laid out the space-blanket, the foam, then wrapped myself in rough blankets. The water sack was for if I had to camp away up there, and it would and did, save me going up and down the bank, some of which were ten metres high. Truly. Ask anyone who's been out to the Darling.

Plastic storage box

Sketchbook, pencils, paints, notebooks, journal, glasses, headtorch, toilet paper, toiletries, face cloths (two, and different colours), matches, knee guard, mirror, hairbrush, camera, bins, phone, wallet etc., spare cliplocks, book, will.

This box had to be strong because it was also the campsite seat. Why do you think I had different colours for the face cloths?

In the canoe but not in any containers

BBQ grill/plate, paddle, ropes, solar panel, 12V battery, raincoat, zinc cream 50+, pumpkins, bait, eggs, and me.

I either bolted or roped these in. It was hard tying two dozen eggs and a tube of zinc cream to the crossbars.

Wearing

Sandshoes, long trousers, long-sleeved shirt, hat, gloves, three layers of zinc 50+ cream, sunnies and anything else that might stop the direct sun or a reflection of it. I am now up to sun cancer #43 that's been cut out.

I sat back into a seat (dog clips held the straps to the side of the canoe) and put my feet up on the crossbar. I leant into the paddle strokes, pushing forward in the opposite direction. The first few days my hamstrings were tight, my lower back stiff and there were a multitude of sharp pains in the back of each shoulder. Then about day five, well if I was any fitter I'd be dangerous. Even though I was an inexperienced paddler of canoes (the seventies trip was in a flat-bottomed tinnie - so this was my first time in a canoe) I felt I was doing an okay job. However, I found out a few weeks later at Pooncarie that apparently I had no idea what I was doing. I met a canoe paddling expert there, and can I say that the world needs saving from these idiots. **** They should be rounded up and tossed under a bus. ****

Living in Brisbane after fourteen years next to the rainforest had many benefits. I got to meet rude people, I was run off the road twice in the first week (I later discovered that you have to indicate when you want to change lanes. What is wrong with these people?) and I went to uni to learn how to be a primary school teacher. I believe education is a powerful way towards enlightenment; particularly if the educating is done without corruption, bullying, murder, deceit, abuse and demeaning of others. Becoming a teacher was also an honour, perhaps dubious because I was then paid to tell lies, but nonetheless, an honour. And now, with the last of my long-service leave, I was back on my old river.

# 2

Not many people know this, but birds actually evolved in Australia. Scoff as you may but after the lights went out 65 million years ago, the only birds to survive after that were in East Gondwanaland, now known as Australia. And never mind inventing birdwatchers, Australia has contributed to the UN, stolen New Zealanders, and given the planet the correct meaning for the word 'thong'.

Emus are not birds. They've got feathers, but that's about as close as it gets. When you see them, with their knobbly head on a curved neck, just picking about, or running with long strides and their bodies in bouncy poetic motion, you realise that what you are seeing is certainly not a bird with brown and white feathers bobbing up and down, but a dinosaur disguised as a feather duster. Birds (including emus) are the only surviving lineage of dinosaurs. The ancestors of birds had claws on their arms/wings, early birds had claws on their wings, and indeed many modern birds still have claws on their wings, including emus.

One morning there were ten juvenile emus having a drink. Nine of them saw me and bolted to the top of the bank. Maybe they clawed their way up? The one that stayed noticed the commotion, spied me, and thought, 'My Goodness, that's a bad person coming my way, no wonder the sibs have vacated.' He looked up to his brothers and sisters (he loved them dearly) then looked back at the river, and was totally confused. He was like, 'Hang on, I need a drink but I'm all alone now and not sure what to do here.' Again he looked at me, up the bank, and at the water. Kept on doing that. Decision making not one of his strengths. So I waved the others down to join their nervous brother. How on earth this species has survived, I don't know. Maybe another rock will land and get them? If you wave at emus, (the more outlandish the better), they come closer. Unfortunately, the remaining emu was so spooked he jumped into the river and swam to the other side. Perhaps still thirsty.

When you see emus swimming, you realise that all those Loch Ness monster photos, you know the blurred ones that declare, 'Nessie was seen last Tuesday,' were not really fakes. They were actually real photos of an emu swimming across the flooded Darling taken by a drunk fisherman. The water's colour may have been touched up a little, but there you have it. If you've any animal mysteries you need solved, give me a call. Sasquatch, Yeti, people raised by animals, anything. For a small fee, I'm available.

I saw a raven harassing adult wood ducks and trying to steal one of their ducklings. The parent ducks were flapping in a ballet of protection **.** Up and down they weaved on soft wings with a balance so precise I wanted them to never stop. Then the raven feinted and tricked both parents away, doubled back and quickly took a duckling. A magnificent battle of survival yet it wrenched my heart to see this death and the sadness of the parent ducks. I saw their heartache as they called out for the taken baby. I will never eat wood ducks again; their bravery is amazing. And my conscience, just sitting there listening says, 'So, tall one, wood ducks are the only brave animal?'

_Ardea Alba_ , the big lanky white egret with the three metre neck, bent and shaped like it was soft copper wire, was standing, looking, on a tight corner. Sharp corners and no noise have a surprise factor not yet learned by the world's spy agencies. Again, I'm available. (Slightly higher fee this time.) I had to follow the current around a log and this put me right next to this egret. He saw me and tilted his yellow beak, and his head, obviously. There's no hinge there. He thought, and I can read egret thoughts, 'Is this moving thing dangerous? Why is he sitting in a red log?' (When your parents are poor and you are raised in a stick nest in a gum tree, you don't know what a canoe is). He didn't move. His choices were becoming like the channel I was in - rather narrow. He could either fly now, or stay. He looked and grimaced. Swallowed hard, like he'd been caught in an embarrassing moment, or trying for a cover up something, like a guard dog that doesn't see you go past then barks and froths in a woeful effort to save face. I was so close now I could touch him, and he became a statue on a front lawn. After I swept past, he started to pick in the mud as if nothing unusual had just occurred.

'Whaat? I knew he was safe, moment I saw him.'

Later, another egret, same species with the crispy white wings, flew up river each time I came closer, and then watched me come closer. He had more wealthy parents and was sent to a private school, one that had outdoor education, a resident paedophile and a hairdresser, and therefore knew what a red canoe was. He landed on a huge fallen tree that had fifteen fairy martin mud nests under it. The martins were criss-crossing the air around the egret. They said, 'We are only small and we are for the moment merely dive-bombing around your head as a warning, but watch out if we get cranky.'

The egret jumped and grabbed a martin out of the air, then looked at me, now almost upon him, and said, through his clenched mouth, 'What do I do with this?' 'Listen mate, we all make choices. Deal with it.' I love giving righteous advice to an egret. (I could also have said, 'Listen son, you may have ambition mixed up with capability.') The egret flew up further onto the bank and tried to gulp the head-first martin down by bobbing his head up and down. He couldn't do it, because the martin was too big and after being spat out, the martin flew back to his nesting log. And that is why they are called martins, not swallows. Can't really say that the martin had no egrets in life.

# 3

Whenever I met people on the river the conversations ranged from philosophy to football. Make no mistake, river people are worldly and can mix it with the best. Being out there does not limit a person's understanding of middle-east politics, their ability and/or desire to pluck a banjo or even their reluctance to offer advice.

I saw such advice as a way of sharing knowledge, of imparting truth and wisdom, or even a means to make them feel good and me bad. Which seems to happen every now and again. Just below Menindee and on the way to weir 32, I met some fishermen.

'Weirs, yep. Just paddle hard and go straight over the top.'

Tremendous, thanks for that. I can see my obituary; 'Tony was normally a sensible boy. Why did he think paddling over a weir was a good idea?'

'Bridges? Ha, we just laid down and flew underneath.'

Sure. What about the bottoms of those weed-encrusted cup-head bolts that poke through, waiting to tear chunks out of your head? Or the rusty strand of barbed-wire, strung across, waiting to garrotte you? 'You gonna take five weeks to Wentworth? Kidding me mate, did it in three days in a kayak.'

That's great. Did you take in the beauty, the fantastic company you met and the subtle nuances of this mighty river? No, didn't think so. You just wanted to brag, right?

Sometimes I felt unworthy because I wasn't as tough as they were. (Although I did once go without beer for a week. Hurt, too.) They could do these amazing feats of endurance, and be brave and all gung-ho. Maybe it's me that needs to convince me. Old insecurities and low self-beliefs can take their time to go. But I have time. I'm still young.

I stop a little way before a weir, usually only about a kilometre or so, just to check out the type of construction. I'm wary of rushing water, especially when it flows over a concrete wall and I'm in a canoe heading towards it. And the Personal Flotation Device is back in a shed in Brisbane. Apart from my maps, I could tell weir 32 was coming because there's a sign that says, 'You will die if you go over this weir.' Which is similar to the sign on the dippy bridge that spans the Macquarie River at Dubbo, 'You may hurt yourself if you jump off this bridge.' Seeing as the river is around four kilometres below the bridge, there's a big chance this may occur. 'Do not try to stop this chainsaw with your hands.' Right there is firm evidence that Western civilisation is in decline. As I reached the weir, there were several hundred more signs. Do not fish here, Do not paddle a canoe over this weir no matter what advice you get, and, Do not walk on the fish ladder.

The fish ladder at weir 32 is an enclosed angled construction made from concrete and heavy steel mesh that sits at the edge of the weir wall. It is a vertical slot construction that allows for the passage of fish (apparently including murray cod well over a metre), shrimps and confused swimmers to the river above the weir. (The Burtundy weir below Pooncarie also has one.) Could I please add, that all the weirs up the Darling, including the main weir above Menindee, should have one of these? Otherwise we have different rivers, because native fish migrate. Thank you, I feel better now.

And just below this weir, I counted ten fishermen, their rods standing straight and tall, lines aiming right into that awesome backwash where they, and the Department of Fisheries, know the fish are. I tied up around a box tree. I wound the rope seven times around the trunk. You never know what that river is going to do when you're not looking. On my side there was an old bloke by himself. He wore footy shorts, sandshoes and was sort of scruffy looking.

'Hey. What have you got? They biting?'

'Yep, got a good yellowbelly. That's a nice canoe you got there. I had a canoe once. Where you going? Can you come a bit closer so I can hear you better?'

'Going to the Murray. Did you go down rivers?'

'Oh yes. But things change, and I haven't been in a canoe for a while and I certainly miss it. Hey, that's my son over there on the other side. He's the one in the towelling hat. You see him?'

Walking I might add, on the fish ladder. He will not get in, unless of course, he has an oxy torch and a jackhammer. Which he could then use as a cooking device and a chopping knife respectively. Big fish in the Darling.

He said, 'When the financial meltdown happened on top of the drought, well our little town died. But all the boys stayed to fight it out. They did it tough and they still are. Every year we come here, just fathers and sons, to fish and to talk. You know, about stuff.'

What better place; fishing at a weir on the Darling. Very blokey and very Australian.

'Hey mate, let's get that canoe around and then we can have a beer.'

When we were having that beer, I said, 'Want to take her for a spin?'

He had a great time. Called out to his son, waved a bit, 'Look at me, back in the saddle!' Then we had some more beers and talked about old rivers and little fires and listening to things. And just looking at old gum trees, and thinking like a fish. He said, as he stared into the water, 'You know, fishing isn't about catching fish, is it? Mind you, it's nice if you do. But fishing on the Darling is about giving love and understanding your soul. Don't you reckon?'

As I looked at him, in his old ripped red flanny, his five-day growth and can of beer, my heart got ripped out and tossed onto the grey clay, and I knew I had just seen God, right there on the bank of the Darling River.

# 4

Weir 32 was like hitting a four off the first ball of an over in a game of cricket. A leave or a quick single would then be okay as a follow up, because you could say, 'Hey, I've got runs on the board. I just need to play myself in with the next five deliveries, so back off.' How on earth would the rest of this trip be when one of my main objectives was met on day one? Do I pack up and go home? 'Hi Darl, it's me. Yeah, great trip. What? Home a bit early? I suppose...' Or maybe I could have said, 'Wait weir 32 man, I'm not ready for the way you spin that ball, I need more time to read the pitch of life, to work out why you have set a field with three slips, a gully and a long-on, not to mention get my mental attitude on track.' And then what, in the second innings say, 'Okay, I'm ready man, give me your best delivery'? ****

You don't expect, on day one of a lengthy canoe trip, to meet the Divine, to realise that God was not only visible but you had touched him? Before this I was thinking, Right, a bit down the track on this five hundred kilometre journey I might see something pretty cool. But no, first day, look out here I am. Doesn't one get a warning sign? Like the, _'You are about to be swept over a weir'?_ A ' _Watch out ahead, God is waiting'_ would have done fine. Then I could have chosen: for example, My Goodness, think I'll turn back, I might hurt my hands trying to stop my whirring preconceptions and unreadiness. And not read the leg spin that's coming.

But then maybe because I saw God on day one the rest would not be an anticlimax but a continual climb into a place in the mind that would inspire me to give love. I have been exposed as an idiot many times (You need a list?), but this one was like, 'Tony, you wanted a special delivery, but hey, you weren't ready when I put it outside your off stump? What's going on?' Or maybe I would rise above the temptations, the false lures of hope, and dodge the bodylines of self-criticism and be something.

Thank you weir 32 man, I accept what you have given today because you have turned the uncertainty and fear into hope. Thank you man at weir 32 for making me wake up to myself so early, and to realise that here I saw not just your incredible strength, your genuine friendship, sharing, kindness, and your understanding of the Darling, but an interlacing consciousness of purity, and perhaps an understated vision of the universe that was a wee reminder of the power of a moment, a moment to shake you, to amaze you and to let you know that the beauty of the God of humanity is out there. (At the minute, dressed in a flanny and footy shorts.) I had been blown out of the water of doubt; I had been slammed into the dirt of disbelief and I had been rocked to sleep in a caring cradle of love by a grubby fisherman who loved his son and understood the bigger picture of life. I felt tingles I felt wow and I thought, What an honour to meet such a person. And have a cold beer too.

# 5

Breakfast was a pot of coffee (if you don't drink coffee or understand those of us who do, stand well to the side) and an egg. When the eggs were all gone, it was brown rice porridge with honey squeezed on top. Lunch (if there was any) was fruit, piece of damper or a handful of dates. For tea I had either a freeze-dri meal, rice, couscous, or if I was lucky, a wild animal.

When I drifted down the Darling in the seventies, there was plenty of wild food available. For starters, there was a constant supply of fish, so constant that even on the days when I thought, No, I will not go fishing on this day, a massive murray cod would leap up onto the bank next to me pleading to be eaten. One of our galaxy's greatest accomplishments is apparent on our inland rivers: if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day (want to be a bloody big fish, just quietly), but if you teach a man to fish, you ruin him for life.

Fresh greens were waiting to be picked, perhaps not as vigorously as the aforementioned leaping cod, but there were at least eight different species which could either be eaten raw or cooked. And I had a rifle. I shot and ate feral goats, grasshoppers and pigs (usually feral). Back then, every farmer said, 'Kill the goats, shoot as many as you like.' And I did (except for a goat called Herbie who almost converted me to vegetarianism and Catholicism. Almost - settle.) Nowadays, if you even looked the wrong way at a feral goat, the landowner would say, 'What the hell do you think you're doing? I make guaranteed money of those suckers, so back off.' And I would say, when I was a long way downstream and the tent door was locked, 'Yes, okay, I will resist eating your valuable goats, but will you take responsibility for the destruction they cause? For example, the ringbarking of exposed river red gum roots?' Yet I love goats. To eat, to cuddle and to look at. They're amazing animals and the potential, if managed (which often isn't the case along the Darling), will transform sheep country for a bit. I need to say right here, that I now seem to be more outspoken than I was way back when. My comments are not based on science, detailed animal husbandry and certainly not bravery, but are observations borne of many trips along the old river and more importantly, discussions in a country pub. If you doubt this country pub thing, go into a bush pub and ask some curly ones. Like, 'So, is it correct that you locals like eating carp?' Good luck. Don't ring me.

If you choose not to eat insects, that's fine, because it's all the more for me. When you shoot grasshoppers, you have to go for the head shot. Olive oil, sea-salt and a sprinkle of dukkha all equal health with six legs. I've also tried grubs, caterpillars and even worms. Worms are much harder to shoot because the little buggers never keep still. Don't tell many people about this. I used to drink blood too, but I've stopped doing that. I mean, how stupid was that?

In the seventies, pigs were as plentiful as they were healthy and I shot plenty to eat, although there was one exception to the eat-what-you-shoot rule (which has been embarrassingly recorded in the best-selling book, _Drifting down the Darling_.) **** However, it was now 2010 and because of one idiot and a country we strive to imitate (why I don't know, because Australia is obviously a world leader in firearm safety, sexy accents and how to treat its indigenous peoples), carrying a rifle in public has new rules, perceptions, and was for me out here, not viable. So if I wanted a pig it meant I had to run fast; which I could. I could run down kangaroos, cheetahs and an ice-cream van, all at the same time.

I saw a sow and three piglets, and I thought, here we go, I'm still the man. I drifted in to the sandy beach and softly tied up. The sow snorted and scrambled up to the top of the bank under some big gums. I stalked, bent low and dodged a few stray bullets, just like playing bushrangers when I was a kid walking to school. I knew it would pay off one day. She trotted along the high bank, tripping here and there, with me in pursuit. After ten minutes I was getting a smidgeon puffed. Then she sprinted, and took my evening meal with her. I gasped like a fish out of water, my little mouth opening and shutting in an attempt to stave off reverse asphyxiation. I walked back towards the canoe wheezing and wishing I had my chest puffer. And then I saw a movement under a huge gum tree. It was a pig's ear flicking about, like they do. I crept up a fallen log until I was twenty feet away. A huge sow was lying in a dirt and bark nest with six piglets wrestling and sucking. She was massive. Now, normally I would just run over screaming and kill all of them with my bare hands and then beat my chest. A loin-clothed bloke in the jungles of Africa copied my celebratory style. Still waiting for royalties. I stood on that log for thirty minutes. I thought, if I rush over to the nest, I have no cover, no tree to climb and she, and possibly her husband if he's not down at the local putting a bet on, will rip me to shreds and I will die. Slowly, next to the Darling River, nearly age sixty. This would probably negate the order form I had sent upstairs that said, Place and age of death: in bed, asleep, age 125 (if indeed I do ever decide to die).

My heart was pounding so loudly I was sure they would hear it, not to mention the getting there by treading on the dry crackly leaves. Pigs' hearing is so extraordinary they give lessons to flying foxes, dogs and radar operators. They are paid for these lessons through subsidies and this money helps pay for their Labradors because pigs are legally blind. Certificates are given out like lollies, government support is readily available and they can buy sunglasses at a reduced rate, usually two for one. I have seen pigs wearing wrap-around sunnies and also **** having that spare pair pushed up on the heads. Or, if they are groovy pigs, on their necks, backwards. Some pigs are just so cool. There they are, sunnies notwithstanding, trying to trot behind their guide dogs, tripping over logs and banging into trees because the Labradors were trained for city living.

Plan a) consisted not only of my extreme bravery and hunting skills, (both of which have been referred to a standing committee regarding performance enhancers, betting scandals, non-attendance at training and the occasional appearance at an outpatients clinic), but also a vicious weapon. One which an entire European army used as a deterrent during WW11. All they had. "Scissors OUT!". But my Swiss Army three-inch blade was not a deterrent or a defence, it was my first choice of attack. About now I realised this may not end well for me. Plan b) was so secretive even I didn't know about it.

It was clear that one of us was going to die here this morning. I ran yelling towards her, slipped and did a face-plant in the dry leaves. She made a horrible scream that sounded like a waiter after not being paid correctly for a Sunday double-shift, and stood there bristling, her red eyes fixed on mine. As one piglet went to ground, the other five panicked and with her, ran towards another gum tree, not that far away. Right there next to them was a huge boar, black and muddy, and I could tell that he didn't like me. I knew we would never be Facebook friends. I'm not bad at reading body language. I dived and grabbed the remaining piglet. He squealed and I ran, weaving and yelling into the river. I turned to face one or maybe two beasts who may wish to have a word, but there was nothing. I stood there shivering and making ripples from my shivering and shaking. With dinner.

# 6

Cooking a pig is best done over a long slow time, and there is a huge difference between a long slow and a lengthy fast. It is a difference that means not death or illness (hey, you eat wild pig you bring your own insurance policy, first-aid kit and pen and paper to write a will) but of taste. It then becomes a feast that conjures people sharing, drinking, laughing and telling stories. And when the fat and grease are dribbling down your chin, you know the cooking time had been right. You can wrap wild pig in foil, clay or leave it in its own skin, it makes little difference. It is a pink meat and it tastes pink. It is sweet, light and really tasty. If you add any condiments, such as salt, tomato sauce or pickles, please don't tell me. Unlike insects and little wriggly things, wild pig and fish are best eaten plain. All the Mediterraneans, the Asians, the Indians, they all use too many extras. The plethora of cooking shows, even the non-humiliatory-informative ones have lost the plot. It's no wonder whole populations have health issues. Too many herbs and spices are no good for your arteries, imagination or memories.

When you fish without hunger or anxiety, but with need of solitude, it is like being channelled through the universe in a dream cloud that is as pure as the most beautiful thing you will ever hope to experience. Fishing is simplicity; it is beauty both literal and abstract, usually at the same time, and if you accept these things, then you become whole and you will rise above the need to complain, to feel down or to throw stones at the neighbours. And it won't matter if you don't catch a fish. Perhaps fishing could be described as spiritual.

The cod were on the bite and one shrimp equalled one cod. Nice ratio. And I love mathematics. Just ask any kid whom I have taught. 'But Mr P, you said we wouldn't be doing any mathematics this year?' And the shrimps had just emerged from wherever it is they emerge from after winter, and they were hungry and therefore easy to catch. Every deep hole I chose to fish in, ones crawling with logs, because that's where murray cod live, meant my day would be good. Springers, those bendy sticks driven deep into the sand used to tie the line to, were wrenched out and flung across the river. Every time. Please do not challenge me on this (even though it may sit somewhere between fantasy and belief) because reality never gets a look in with fishermen. Truth is a not applicable to dreaming about what life could be like and believing that it will be so.

# 7

From the 1860s to the late 1870s, Tolarno Station (the explorers Burke and Wills stayed in the original homestead) carried between 200,000 and 300,000 sheep (and that, by the way, is a huge difference. 'Hey Jim, how many sheep did you say we had?') The station had a run of over a million acres, a forty-five mile river frontage, and around the main house it had three hotels, a school, a gaol and three hundred and fifty families. This is usually called a city and you would normally see trams, railways and smog. The current main house has over one hundred doors and the roof area is over an acre. If someone slammed a door you wouldn't have a clue which one. 'Can you stop doing that!' No answer.

I had contacted Rob McBride, the owner of Tolarno, and he had said Yes, you are welcome to call in, the manager will show you around. I called in but the manager was away and the rest of the blokes were crutching and were therefore too busy to help me play tourist. I stayed in the shearers' huts just down from the house and there were some blokes there from Peppora, a neighbouring station that also belonged to Tolarno. The Peppora manager, Bob, had to drive back to the Tolarno homestead shed to grind his blades and he offered to take me for a look around.

As we walked through the rooms, all now empty, there were noises and aromas coming from the kitchen area. There was singing, pots being banged, and freshly baked bread allowing aromatic dreams to seep under the door and into my head. Is a longing for the good old days merely an avoidance of the current one? An acknowledgement that right now, your life sucks? Or an appreciation of a solidness where people had values that were eternal?

In 1894, during the shearers' strike, the paddle steamer Rodney was on its way up river to Tolarno with 45 non-union labourers to break the strike. Shearers met it downstream near Moorara Station and burnt it. Probably because it was called the Rodney.

'Hey Skip, what's your paddle steamer called? What's that? Righto boys, get the matches.'

The remains of the Rodney retain the principle characteristics of the inland riverboats in terms of their broad beams, shallow draft and use of indigenous timbers, particularly the River Redgum. The remains...are outstanding due to the integrity of its fabric and the esteem with which it is held as a part of the history of the Darling River and the Shearer's Strike.

Heritage Branch, Office of Environment and Heritage (NSW).

Just below Polia Station, I saw the remains of the Rodney, her ribs sticking out. I paddled over, wary of the steel spikey bits. I drifted quietly, daydreaming about shearers and a fire, and I thought about decisions we make and the possible changes that may then come about. Like burning a paddle steamer, dreaming too much or escaping the workforce. And that some of these decisions may lead to unimagined realities, great beauty or even terrible lies.

On this trip I had time limits. I had long service leave tacked onto school holidays and while I was grateful to have this opportunity I was resentful of the system to which I had to conform. And probably because I had prepared myself for an eventual loneliness, I talked myself into a dark melancholy.

# 8

One day I got to thinking that I was getting pushed for time, and that I must paddle a bit harder to make some distance. The plan was to go hard until just before sunset, pull up on one of those gorgeous sandy beaches, go into action with the tent and a fire, and be all warm and snug before dark, with a fish on the grill plate. On this day I ended up doing over forty kilometres (possibly no big deal for some kayakers I had met). I by-passed some excellent beaches, all perfect camping spots with deep water and a fallen tree for little sticks. But not here; no, we need to go a bit further don't we. Bad blue Tony. When the sun was almost down, I started looking for a place to camp. I was weary, cold and wet, courtesy of some irreverent clouds, and I started to feel down. At each bend I thought, there will be a beach just here and this is where I will camp. But there were none. Unbelievable. It was nearly dark and I was in a long reach. There were steep clay banks, hard whipped-up dry mud and large smashed branches littering every space. I pulled in, and ran another kilometre, because I can run faster than I paddle, in case there was a beach just ahead. There wasn't, and I had to camp where I had stopped. The ground was harder than concrete - and I have slept on concrete. I laid all my spare clothes down just to soften the ground. I shivered and whinged, and had a horrible night. A stupid idea and a miserable campsite.

This was three days before Pooncarie, and I was in pain. It wasn't another newly-discovered football injury, this was an ache inside because I was lonely. Not because I was alone, I love to be alone, I crave it and need it, but sometimes within this being alone, it hurts because I get lonely. And I haven't found alone's sweet spot, the one that nominates a thwock of temporal warning that says, Watch out, you're turning inward and it's getting dark. I felt awful, sort of teary and about to head into the spin cycle. Now was usually when I blame something or someone else, so let's see what we can do here. That horrible campsite? **** You mean, the one **** which was really of my choosing because I had chosen to rush? The inland explorers would have appreciated my company. 'Hey fellas, this spot just isn't right, I feel the ground's a bit hard. Think I'll go back home now and watch television, do you mind awfully? Bye now.' No, I am better than that. The weather? 'Hey, weather gods, what the hell do you think you're doing, making it rain like that? Bit of consideration would be nice. Didn't you get my order for blue skies?'

The blame thing never really works because deep down I know that a choice that goes belly up cannot be held against anyone or anything else. So why do I bother trying to fool myself? It's almost like I need to confess to myself that I was a dill, then push it away. Being down has hit me before, and I know the rules. And I have won before so how can it keep coming back after I keep giving it a flogging. Maybe it's a different breed each time, or my subconscious changing in order to beat me? Or a continuing lack of self-belief? These endless questions seemed like a deeper earthy drive to be connected to myself as well to those I love, and because I wasn't doing either it was hurting. But this self-analysis made me feel worse because even though I sort of approved of how I lived my life, even with that moderate not-really-believing self-approval, I still felt uncomfortable. This was the deep loneliness I had foreshadowed. I wondered, what if I had predicted joyfulness instead? **** If I ever get back to this old river, that is what I am so going to do. ****

And because I was still feeling yuk, I thought of finishing at Pooncarie and going home.

# 9

Cold can penetrate metal so our flesh doesn't stand a chance. A couple of pints of warm blood can only keep the fire going for so long. I was weary from battling the wind every day, my whole body was aching and worse still, I had run out of coffee. A good enough reason in itself to leave the river. I was done and I longed to be back home. This is known as Hitting the Wall. And as you slide down, slowly, like a cartoon character, it's not a nice feeling. Not only because you're hurting physically, but because you know deep down that you have given up before you resolved the thing. Before you had overcome the dread, the brick in the stomach, the desperation. All I could think about was getting out. I could get a lift back to Wentworth with Geoff the mailman. I knew when he would be passing through. I had seen my beautiful river and had caught murray cod and there were the time constraints of long service leave. Justification is the opiate of the confused, not to mention the anxious. And so being in a somewhat depressed state and doing my utmost to convince myself to finish at Pooncarie, I did the only sensible thing possible; I made a Why I needed to be out of there list.

Pooncarie list #1

1. Missing home.

2. Need a beer.

3. Need a hot shower.

4. Need a hug.

Item number 74, which was down much lower on that list and therefore you cannot see it, was to retire at age 65 (seven years away), brew beer and write stories. What sort of life would that be anyway? I mean really, I would miss teaching and the interaction with kiddies and their gorgeous parents. Not to mention the incredible salary for the hours worked, particularly those after 3pm. Anyway, feeling down is not a great time to be making major decisions so I thought I'd get to Pooncarie and see.

The seven-metre red banks of Pooncarie loomed up at ninety degrees, and I knew crawling up with no gear would be tough enough, never mind trying to drag a canoe, three 60 litre drums and a container of worms to the top. After a couple of weeks, I made it up to the Telegraph Hotel.

After I had dusted myself, bandaged my cuts and iced my bruises, Trevor the publican said, 'You want a room?'

'Yes thanks. Can I have a beer first? It's on my list.'

'Yes. Store the canoe out the back, there's a washing machine if you want, and industrial bins near the fence. We have meals, too. Will it be a Tooheys?'

'Two nights be okay? Yes thanks.'

'Sure. Pay me later'.

The room was pretty small but was compensated by the two bath towels. You need two towels. You can't use the same towel twice because the bits you dry on it today may not match the bits you dry on it the next day. I felt tight in the arms and shoulders and had lost a bit of weight. Probably have to buy new shirts; not smaller because I trimmed down, but bigger because of my extra muscles. I took my shirt off, breathed in and flexed at the mirror. There was nothing. Upper arms still skinny, flabby boobs, soggy belly. However, the hot shower was good. Sixteen days it had been. No point in shaving. Fresh clothes felt nice and in particular, a clean pair of undies. Back in Brisbane I had seen an advertisement for Special Underpants for travelling that cost $50 a pair. 'I used one pair', the blurb said, 'for two weeks.' Can I say that these people have no idea. I've done twice that amount of time with the one pair and they only cost a dollar ninety-five.

The Telegraph Hotel; a mixture of tourists and station hands. I saw a man with a very expensive looking movie camera.

'What are you filming?'

'Group of us from Channel 7 are following the route taken by the explorers Burke and Wills. It's the 150th anniversary. Hey, you're the canoe bloke? Where have you come from? How far you going? What have you seen?'

'So many questions, so little time. You must be from Dubbo. Yeah, Menindee to Wentworth. Just filling in the blanks from a previous trip. Could you please help me get the canoe up to the hotel? Then I'll let you shout me a beer and we can talk about explorers and things.' (I lied before about dragging the canoe up a seven-metre bank.)

Pooncarie, situated on the eastern bank of the Darling, has fifty residents, an historic wharf which isn't there, one hotel, one General Store, and a Post Office. I posted some letters, and bought phone cards because my mobile coverage only spanned two metres, and that was back in Brisbane, and phoned my wife and kids. They had all been missing me of course, and were happy that I was alive and in one piece. I walked down to the old wharf site where there was a coffee shop and made camp. I ordered three coffees and an old-fashioned hamburger, one that was sixty centimetres high.

And at this café everything changed. I sat there, just cruising in a relaxed mental state that was legal, a whole lot cheaper than LSD, superior to magic mushrooms, and sweeter than a Greek pastry. It was one of those times when everything I had ever done came together. All of life's humble moments and love were joined in a powerful union, and it made me light-headed. I moved really slowly, slower than slow motion. It felt warm all around and I reckoned I was the most fortunate person on the planet. I had experienced life and here I was, right now, and this is where I should be. I have a loving wife who lets me be me (who also puts up with me in undies and a blue singlet making lame jokes, doing bird calls and correcting everyone else's grammar), I have healthy kids who are good and just, and they have great friends, I have a terrific job teaching kids, and I was next to the Darling River. The tears rolled down and I felt an incredible love for all of humanity. I felt gratitude and even relief that I was so blessed. I wanted to stay here, to stay and never move. With all this going on, how could I ever feel down? Or maybe I had needed to feel lonely in order to be unlonely? So what if I didn't get all the way to Wentworth? Why rush to get somewhere or to something that might be good, or it might not? I sat in the café, drank strong black coffee and had fascinating talks with people who were driving around Australia.

But unfortunately the moment was ended by a man who caused me great mental anguish, followed by a narrowly-suppressed desire to commit murder. The world has experts, and I was unlucky enough to have one nearby. These people are God's gift to the planet and they usually let you know that this is the case. It must also be said that in the good old days, people like this were left to perish on a windswept crag. Or tied to a post which would be submerged at high tide.

The one I met was the canoe paddling expert. There was a couple at a table, and they had heard I was the canoe bloke. He looked across while his wife pretended to read a newspaper.

'Hey you, do you know how to paddle that canoe?'

Straight away my hackles rose like a cat being threatened by a dog or a dog being threatened by a long-handled shovel. I considered that there was a slight chance he wasn't seeking tips for a future fishing trip down the river but was doing the big put-down thing, the I am better that you and I'm going to let you know trick. I decided that I would kill him later when he wasn't looking. A bit early in the discussion to be making that decision perhaps and I could have been wrong, but I doubted it.

'Well, done a bit, I suppose, but generally no, I guess I don't really know how to paddle a canoe. Don't suppose you could help me out here. I may still have a way to go.' No point holding back.

'Well,' he said, rubbing his hands together, 'It just so happens I used to race canoes.'

'Really? You ran along the bank trying to beat a canoe? Must have been hard dodging logs and stuff.'

His wife tilted her head forward a little and looked over her sunnies.

'Eh? No, I paddled in major races around Australia and in fact, around the world.'

'Of course, how silly of me. Do go on.'

And as I beamed like a used car salesman, a real estate agent or a serial killer (all three went to the same school), his wife lowered the newspaper.

'Well, first up, you don't use your arms to paddle. You knew that right?'

'Damn now, I knew I was holding on with the wrong limbs. Your toes can grip? Well, because we have different lineage, I can give you some tips on locating birth certificates if you like. I've got mine right back to Olduvai Gorge. Must have been where we branched out.'

His wife folded her arms, newspaper now flat on the table.

'...Nooo, it's all in the shoulders, back and hips.'

'You mean the past couple of years of a paddle this side and a paddle that side, have been totally erroneous?'

'No, just wrong.'

Always wanted to meet a linguist, even an unclever one. His wife took her sunnies off, slowly folded them, leaned back and straightened her legs like she needed to stretch.

'You must keep the paddle straight, lean forward and dip it in no further than the base of the paddle bit, pull back using your lower arm and the thrust of your whole body in an opposite motion.'

'That's amazing. We done?'

'Then...' obbloodyviously not '...pull the paddle out before it reaches level with your hips. Anything past that is a waste.'

'Hell yeah, nothing worse than a wasted hip thrust. A bloke would be better off just doing it by hand.'

His wife looked sideways at some flowers. But he was just warming up. 'Of course the J-stroke is so superior.'

'Right. Is it as hard to find as the G-spot? So elusive. Basically, what you're saying is my canoe shouldn't tack all the way down the river, and or even spin right around?'

'No, for God's sake, you're just not doing it right. How on earth have you come this far? You _do_ know how to get out of a canoe properly I suppose?'

At this point I can't legally tell you what I was thinking. My eyes were glassing over and I had a stare accompanied by a perpetual grin, the one you see on crime shows where the music goes all scary and you know bad shit is about to happen. His wife, now unstretched, said, 'Come on Frank, we'd better get going. We'll be late getting somewhere.'

'But Julie,' he whined, 'this bloke has no idea what he's doing.'

As she lead him to the car, I called out, 'Watch out for them branches and potholes now.'

'But Julie,' he continued, as he was now being dragged by the ear, 'We need to stay. He doesn't even know how to get in and out either. Owww. Bet he falls into the water lots.'

I can guarantee that the expert was a more skilled canoeist than me. He had a better physique, and was certainly much fitter. However, there are several points in my favour which need elaborating. One, my wife doesn't buy my clothes; two, I was not corn-fed; and three, I'm weaned.

I went to the shop for some strong fishing gear and bought a roll of fencing wire to use as a trace. John Wootton was rostered on that day. He had been a prison warder in South Australia for 25 years but after too many lock downs, sieges, and then a suicide which hit him personally, he decided to find another world. He told me he had seen the best and worst of humanity, and now wanted a different experience, one that leaned toward the nicer side. John now helped with a mail run, did community work and was on the local fire brigade. He offered to drive me back to the river. He said, **** 'What if I take you to the bridge, you'll be below the weir. What do you reckon?'

I hadn't thought of this but quickly realised it would make sense. 'Thank you John, I would appreciate that lift.'

And so it was that the list, while being a vital part of how my mind works, now seemed unnecessary and even a bit silly.

1. Missing home. (sorted courtesy of a phone-box)

2. Need a beer. (maybe need less beer)

3. Need a hot shower. (already had way too many)

4. Need a hug. (the universe provided well)

# 10

When I left Pooncarie I felt ready to paddle down an old river again. What do you mean, me get lonely? I learned a few things at the café (which had nothing to do with paddling a canoe) and one was that Yes, I had hit the wall, but I had climbed over. I had beaten the strong urge to run. Maybe I am growing up? That is a serious worry. And if the wall is rebuilt, I have coping strategies - eat a super-burger, drink coffee and cry for a bit. Inspiration and joy from despair. I should write a self-help book. Eat, Drink, Cry.

I also learned that when I give myself permission to do something, even to fail at something, or to continue a river trip, then it clears the pressure and I can think more freely. Just for a little while anyway. And then maybe if I really did still want to finish, it would be on my terms of happiness and deep-breathing peacefulness, and not fear. And of course now, talking to myself wouldn't get boring because the new questions are ones that no-one else could ask because they don't know what's going on upstairs. But even though starting below Pooncarie was indeed weird and even a bit exhilarating, there was a slight degree of guilt because I had considered quitting. Acceptance and owning up are noble but denial of yukky emotions is way better. But let's not talk about the war because I now reeked of hot oil and a revving engine, and I was about to drop the clutch. More importantly, I had a new supply of coffee.

I leaned toward the bow, dipped a straight paddle in, and thrust backwards using my shoulder and back, and pushed forward with my hips. I had plenty of food (read: chocolates) and a clean pair of underpants. They weren't on, just in the drum that had #3 written on the lid. I came to an extended rocky section and paddled past three dead pelicans, floating all bent and white. That was a bit weird. It seemed okay to see a floating sheep or a kangaroo, but three dead fully grown pelicans in the one place was a bit unnerving. I saw no signs of a struggle or obvious exterior wounds. Maybe I should check for prints, do an autopsy and then write a report for CSI Pooncarie. Get Abby to run a few tests, invite Bones on board, and see if Colombo and his grey coat were free. From the top of the bank came the sound of a chainsaw, high pitched and angry. I've never heard a chainsaw with a deep voice in a nice mood. A bit further on I saw a caravan and lean-to shed and smoke rising from an open fire. A man was unloading small logs.

He looked down, 'Hey there, want to come up for a cup of sweet tea?'

Do murray cod swim in the water? 'Yes thanks, that'd be nice.'

He was Paul of the chainsaw, a mechanic from Mildura, and spent as much time here on the Darling as he could. He was sixty-four and next year was going fossicking for sapphires and opals. I had scrounged for sapphires at Sapphire and opals at Lightning Ridge and the lure of shining baubles was known to me, so I could understand the attraction. Maybe one day I'll become a gold miner and drink rum and use words like sluice and paydirt. Paul told me how an inspector called last Easter.

'Got busted didn't I. Had a cod in the esky but it was filleted and he said he couldn't tell how big it had been. Hence the fine. Yep, next year I'm leaving the workshop, going to travel and live pretty simply. Just potter about, see the grandkids, look for gemstones.'

'So Paul, you're going to actually retire?'

'Hell yeah. Life is too short to be wasting time.'

'Hey, you been seeing dead pelicans?'

'Usually a few this time of year. But they always seem to be on the bank, like they'd starved.'

I had been stuck on a few thoughts of my own about retirement and Paul's plan was a reminder to myself to talk about it later. To myself. But first let it mull in the part of the mind that is just behind the present thinking section and is before the long-term subconscious bit. It's sort of close by but not instant, and this section is called the solving dilemma section.

After I left Paul and a fine cup of black sweet tea and fascinating repartee (and his chainsaw meditating under a sapling), I lodged those retirement questions with my brain;

1. What is retirement?

2. How does it feel to be nudging sixty?

3. When will I retire?

The answers I received a few days later weren't particularly helpful and I gave consideration to docking my brains' pay. (I have three brains, all of which are currently facing imminent financial ruin. First is in my head and the second is in my belly.)

1. 'So Tony, let us enlighten you about retirement. It is that joyous time when you finish your full-time and hopefully long-term employment, and you are able to access a sizeable wad of superannuation loot and then proceed to watch television all day and annoy the missus. That is the definition of retirement. Ask around.'

Can't wait.

2. 'Yes, you'll be sixty soon and the way us three brains see it, is that things don't work as well as they used to and you have quite a few mental issues, emotional hang-ups and even a couple of unresolved tendencies. Basically, with your problems I'd be bumping up the life insurance.'

Had me there. My health was not so much neglected as driven into the ground and it's all my family's fault. I was made to drink beer at a young age. I also have inherited genes that force me to tell lies, have bad thoughts and to steal. That's just the good bits. Also passed down were a dicky heart, a red-blood cell count that doesn't and enough sun cancers to keep two hospital wards in full-time employment.

3. 'When will you retire and watch television? As stated previously, your health is pretty ordinary so maybe forget it for a bit till you have more in the kitty? Also at sixty there is some rule about paying or not paying 15% tax when you withdraw your super and only being allowed to access certain portions. And we know your attitude towards money and your knowledge of the current economic system are basically crap. Shouldn't you wait until you are sixty-five? Get more super in, maybe look at the old-age pension thing as a backup?'

I was currently fifty-eight and a half, had only been teaching for fourteen years and my super was a little over two dollars-fifty. That would not keep me in chocolates for approximately eight seconds. And I want to be a writer when I grow up, and have no idea of the time that would take (not to grow up, but to write a book) or how much that would cost.

All I had was confusion and no concrete answers. Nothing was cemented at all. Had the solving dilemmas section let me down?

How do you work out fifteen percent of something anyway?

# 11

Icy scuds swept across the river, making pinprick patterns on the surface and on me. When the sun did break through, I tried drifting slowly so I wouldn't meet the next round of clouds. But that didn't work because they usually changed direction just to get me. 'There he is,' they said (I can understand cloud language), 'huddled under a defective raincoat with ice on his nose. Let's swerve and make more of that refrigerated water run down his back.'

The next day white streaky cloud spiralled across a pale blue sky, radiating outwards from the sun like a wagon wheel, and that sun was burning holes in my cheek. As well as making it difficult to retain a mouthful of tea, I knew it would soon rain heavily.

As I made camp, a bank of thunderheads was moving rapidly in from the north. I dug a four metre deep drainage trench around the tent and hid wood under cover for breakfast, not that I would need breakfast if I was washed down the river. That night the sky screamed, the tent leaned at 180 degrees, and I thought that I might be airborne. I have survived twisters, tornadoes and suffered great privations, e.g., no jelly babies for five days, but after this lot, I wondered if my will was up to date. I found out later that four inches of rain fell that night, storms and floods had battered Victoria, flattening sheds, clotheslines and cubby houses.

I crawled out of the tent at first light and saw black and grey clouds zooming like low flying crop-dusters, and rain that swept across at angles never before measured in a year five class with 360 degree protractors. Rain gives our hopes a new beginning and reminds us that life is made up of unexplained beauty. It also washes stuff clean, makes seeds do their thing, and gives the land and its rivers a new life. But when it arrives with a cyclone, things can get smashed to bits.

Grotesque writhing branches flew across the sky like someone was throwing them onto a woodpile, their broken-off orange bits bright against the smooth silver branches. The huge gums, my magnificent Darling River gums, were bending and swaying like dancers doing a whole group ballet warm-up, and there was still a dull roar in the sky which was obviously the Four Horsemen on the move. Could be our last day.

I tried to paddle against a wind so strong that it almost capsized me. My options were to either walk the canoe around a shallow corner, or just sit and wait. Another thing, when the river was low, which it was now (and I loved it so, have I said that yet?), with that wind, and the way those gum trees were leaning and bending, I was a bit wary of paddling underneath.

Just after this wild weather, I came upon an area that had been devastated just the year before. **** In September 2009 a tornado had swept through just below the Lelma Station house and it looked like a meteorite had hit, a bomb had been tested by the French (do it at home please) or someone had said very bad swear words. Never seen anything like it. It was like paddling through what I imagined the ending of the world would look like. Maybe it had been the dressage event for those horses, a sort of practice run. Never mind smashed branches, this place was littered with ancient trees that had been wrenched out by monsters, and then broken across their knees and used for kindling. It was eerie, full of grey ash and blackness. Several trees had tried to renew with new shoots up their trunks but it was like an apology from a priest, pathetic and not genuine. I suppose nature does that; the trees too. I scampered through, scared not for my life but for my stability.

# 12

I came to a reach so shallow that I had to lean forward to shift my weight so I could paddle, and even then with no obvious channel and with six inches of water it was tough going. Not saying I wasn't thin, just that the water wasn't deep. I struggled to a deep hole on a bend and saw three blokes sitting on deck chairs, fishing. They were tied to the steep bank with eleven millimetre rope, because one drop of rain on that clay bank and you would have a twelve metre fun park slippery-dip ride. I waved and after they pushed the rope away from their faces, they all waved back. 'Where're you going?'

'Yeah, probably Wentworth. Catching any?'

'A few yellowbelly. Hey, want to come up and have a bit of steak with us?'

Is the sky blue? 'Yes, okay, that'd be nice thanks.'

Now this corner had a massive deep hole, and even in a low river there were backwashes and swirls. It was like crossing layers of glass that were interspersed with huge sections of boiling water. The canoe would glide sideways like invisible spider webs were pulling it to another dimension. A normal stroke feels like you're paddling in air. Next minute the paddle grabs, and the canoe slews, quite quickly. So when the boys said, Just come under that log over there to get to the steps cut into the bank, I thought, Do they really want me to drown so they can steal my leftover damper or the thousands of $US, small denominations with the latest serial numbers, tucked in my money belt? When you go under a log there are two choices only; one, you live or two, you die. That's it. Just like a two-course meal in West Dubbo - take it or leave it. There's no in-between that says, 'Well chaps, this is a bit tough, think I'll just toddle off home for a while and think about it.' You have to look for any ripples or swirls because they could mean a backwash or something just under the surface and either might catch the canoe. And if you get stuck while you are negotiating the underside of the log, which may include bumping a wasp's nest that will then unload eight million crazy orange fighter planes, it could make for an interesting afternoon. I leaned back, quite severely, and just let the river do its thing, and made it through. Risk is wonderful, especially if you are alive afterwards and even offered a drink.

'Hey,' they called down the bank, 'would you like a cold beer?'

'Hmmm, a cold beer. Oh, alright thanks.'

I scrambled up the bank, tripping over my tongue, my greed and my addiction. They were three ex-detectives from Geelong, in Victoria, Nick, Jim and James, who from now on, shall be known as the Geelong Boys. They came to the Darling just to fish, to dream and to talk about stuff. Seems a lot of people do that. We talked about racing pigeons and retirement.

Nick said there was a farmer at St Arnaud, sort of halfway between Mildura and Melbourne, who as a kid saw a falcon take a racing pigeon. (Perhaps to the movies?) A blue-chequer cock. That's the name for a boy pigeon; a cock. The falcon took his boy pigeon to a dead tree, and thereupon ripped it to pieces and ate it. (He did this before the movies and therefore saved money. The things these falcons will do to save the price of a movie ticket. I don't know, what's the world coming to?) This tearing to shreds pigeon thing happened with frequency, a quite often frequency it turned out. Forty years later our dead tree died, even though it was already so, and smashed to the ground. When Nick's farmer cleaned up the branches, he found one hundred and fifty-two pigeon rings. The pigeons are better at St Arnauds; a new franchise on its way to a dead gum tree near you. Very fast food. No wrappers to litter the streets, just piles of little silver rings to sweep up, melt down and rework into a sword - a sword of the rings.

My rib-eye steak was four inches thick and was accompanied by two fried eggs, tomato, bacon, toast and butter. This was the biggest meal I'd had since third class and I found it hard to move my stomach sideways. The boys told me about retirement and what it meant for them. My ears were listening and my mind was racing. Just before I left, six hours later, and feeling somewhat light-headed from the steak, Jim said, 'Would you like a bit of fresh stuff to take with?'

'Thank you Jim, that would be nice.'

'Hey Tony?'

'Yes Jim.'

'Well, that was a cool under the log thing. Saw you as you came down the river, just paddling before, one this side one the other, just cruising along. Wish I could do that.'

'You mean, being an expert paddler, or trying to dodge wasps, a rusty bolt and seven fairy martin nests under that log and not being drowned? Know what Jim, you could do it if you want. Not risk your neck under a log, the river trip I mean.'

'How do you plan for a trip like what you're doing?'

'Do you like lists by any chance? Send one to you if you like.'

As I fumbled in the soft sand and set up camp I looked into the bag that Jim had given me. There were two tomatoes, half a pumpkin and two cold cans of beer, wrapped expertly in newspaper. I love you Geelong Boys. I blame them for what happened next, because that night as I drifted in a canoe of confusion, a half-dream of dreams and daytime reality, I felt a tingle of excitement. Probably my third brain waking up. Or another rash.

The next day, although a little fuzzy from too many tomatoes, I asked myself a what-if question. A WIQ is always a dangerous undertaking and this little baby was volatile. What if I retired now?

My top brain said, 'You serious? You don't even know what retirement is, you're falling to bits and you have no money. And you can't do the 15% thing, so get a grip. Dreams are okay, but this is craziness.'

'Minor details, and yes I am serious. Stay with me here, you might learn something. What about at the end of this year? Do the term of teaching, get reports done, parent interviews, and then graduation for my darling Year Sevens.'

I went all quiet at the total ridiculousness of this suggestion, and immediately pulled in to the bank. The Tingle of Life, currently making it difficult to paddle and think at the same time (some males often have this two things at once difficulty) was reaching upwards making my scalp contract. Explained the headache I guess. And I decided right then and there, that Yes, I would retire this year.

Regardless of a few simple mathematical considerations involving money, tax, forms and the like, nothing could stop me now. Quality of life would definitely not be bound by a skerrick of long-service-leave or as an accidental by-product, it would go beyond a whimsical choice and into the realms of a life to be lived frugally, like it used to be back in the sixties and seventies. Retirement would allow me to write that book that I'd always wanted to write.

I felt a renewed sense of innocence, like I used to have before I got caught up in the whirl of being lost in hardware stores, of shopping at places where it hurt me to even drive past their logos of falsity. I was going back to the fringe where I belonged.

The world celebrated with me. It rained so hard I had to bail out the canoe. I was totally soaked and bloody cold. I must remember to buy a raincoat that keeps the rain out. I had to unload and drag the canoe around two log jams, and to cap it off, because I had a grin so wide, a heron flew to pick my teeth clean like those little birds do to crocodiles. I was in such an excited state, I knew nothing could ever go wrong, I was invincible.

# 13

There is wisdom in the ages,   
And the landscape is eternal,  
And that knowledge lives beside you,  
Yet is not at your command.  
Take the time to know your country  
For its spirit lives within you,  
And it resonates around you,  
As it joins you to the land.

From _Elemental_ by Andrew Hull. This man is a genius.

There's a man on the bank and he's a grandfather. I know this because he's old and grey and wrinkly. He's thin and angular and craggy and he's just sitting there fishing, like grandfathers do, on a camping chair. He gives a wave to me, and it is just a little wave, a taciturn acknowledgement, a wee movement that says nothing but promises everything.

Inspiration and excitement often come in small sizes. Men often get this type of wave from young women with nice bottoms, older ladies on the escalator or from work colleagues. I get mine from old geezers. He doesn't want to talk and that's okay. I know he understands what I'm doing, and me him. All this within three seconds. Beside him on another folded-out chair is his granddaughter. I can tell that's who she is. She is sitting on a smaller chair, like a child chair in a family of chairs. Not many in this family. Maybe that's all they were allowed to have. She has a little fishing rod, a smaller version of her grandfather's, and she's concentrating all of her eight years into that water. She doesn't see me because she's so focussed on what she's doing. The old man looked down at her, and I can feel the deep love he has for her. He looked up at me again as I drifted past and I don't dare paddle and make ripples in this beautiful moment, and he smiled a smile so powerful that it came into me and I never wanted this moment to end. As I drifted past them, with tears rolling down my face, I nodded once to the old man, and I thanked him, in my mind only, and I knew he was listening. I said, Thank you for sharing the planet with me. Thank you for accepting and thank you for letting me be me. He said, Keep on believing in what you do, no matter where you are. Take my hand and I will give love to you.

I understand that I may have a vivid imagination but this is what really happened. And I still get asked, 'Tony, what happened out there each day?' And people mostly want to hear what they want to hear. They want the wild pigs, the fish, the bush characters. Yes, I go to the old river for adventure, hell do I what. Adventure is exciting and I feel raw and become a wild animal. Nothing wrong with this and I still fancy myself as a tough bushie, one who glides, one who can choose and then deliver death. (But there are times, usually when I trip chasing a stationary thistle, that I realise I am not tough). Yet I find it hard to tell about things like the grandfather story because I'm scared of being laughed at. And I know this because when I have veered from the adventure into deeper stuff, I see shuffles and I see eyes glaze in a rejection of someone they deem is slightly crazy. Which is fair enough, I have acknowledged that judgement many times, and if it's passed on in a relatively pleasant manner, I don't mind. But maybe their shuffles and glazes breed a continued non-acceptance of their own self?

The quote from Andrew Hull's _Elemental,_ is only a small section of the entire poem, but it fitted so well with this chapter. It tells me I need to keep believing in the land and the rivers and people, and appreciate the connections that are there.

# 14

I decided to finish this trip pretty close to Palinyewah Public School because I knew that past it there were vineyards and citrus blocks, and along with the abundance of houses, it would be difficult to find a campsite. I left camp straight after morning coffee (I still had about twelve kilos of coffee left, courtesy of my excellent volume and capacity skills) and it rained again. The intermittent prickles whipping across the water in sheets of grey coldness made dark puddles that made me want to lay my coat down for damsels. A new Age of Shivelry. This unusual weather pattern was repeated across a lot of eastern Australia, and the rain was desperately needed. However, things did get out of hand in Queensland the following summer.

I recognised where Palinyewah School was from when I had gone through with Geoff the mailman. I scrambled and slipped up and down a high orange bank, much higher than the one at Pooncarie, then walked down to the school. They organised a lift into Wentworth for me and with that consideration accounted for, I looked for a place to leave the canoe. There was a house just above where I had tied up, and I knocked on the door to ask if I could leave my stuff there until I could retrieve it later. There was no-one home so I dragged my stuff up anyway and left it on the front lawn anyway. They won't mind, Darling River people are like that. I left it there for three days, right next to the road.

'Hey Brian, someone has left a canoe on the front lawn.'

'I can see. He leave any murray cod?'

Then I had some twinges. Maybe a new collective noun for lots of twinges could be twanges. Not guilt for dumping my stuff without permission, just an excitement to be finishing, which would be an oppositional excitement to the starting, and I was tired and sore.

I collected my ute and I drove back to pick up my canoe. I met the owners of the house where I'd left my gear.

'Thank you so much for letting me leave my canoe on your front lawn.'

'No problem at all, any time. You take the cod with you? Where have you come from?'

'From Menindee, and this will do me. Can you tell me about your oranges?'

'I get thirty-five cents a kilogram for my oranges.'

'How does that work?'

'It doesn't. Just covers costs, the loan and wages. Anyway, I just bought another 10,000 trees, so we'll see how that goes.'

The town of Wentworth, at the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers, was named in honour of William Charles Wentworth, explorer and politician, in 1859. (The pre-whitefella locals called it Urumba.) The list of things he had a finger in was as varied as it was impressive: securing responsible government, freedom of the press, trial by jury and he was the initiator of a movement which founded the first Australian University. He probably cheated at cards.

I think a town should be named after each person on the electoral roll. 'And what have you done, Freddy Bloggs?'

'Well, I consider myself the king of gate makers.'

'That's it?'

'You mean other than being a great king, there is more to life?'

'Alright, settle. Your town is to be named Bogan Gate'.

Wentworth was considered as the nation's capital but missed out because politicians baulked at the idea of drinking river water. Been their weak point ever since. Baulking I mean. Would only take one you know, to stand tall and be the true leader of our relatively new nation. "I, Mary Bloggs, of Bogan Gate, have hereby drunk the water from the Darling so vote for me.' Sounds of cheering, things thrown into the air, babies kissed, public holidays given etc. But hang on a tick, didn't we have a mob that had been here for at least 60,000 years, already drinking the water from the Darling? Maybe one of their mob could be our new leader?

The Wentworth jail, built during 1879-1881, is a masterpiece of architecture, and its functionality and great beauty were copied for Alcatraz, Folsom and downtown Dubbo. The school, the church and the more modern iron fish that adorn the streetscape all add to the appeal of this town. Rodney Hobbs makes model paddlesteamers and his boats on display in a shop in the main drag are accurate and intricate. Wentworth has roses along fences, horses in the street and a genuineness that is to be treasured.

I decided to celebrate my impending retirement with a pub crawl. First stop was the Captain Sturt Hotel. This hotel was built in 1886 and was originally called the Commercial. Old hotels have charm. They ooze memories and emotions as shiny and weathered as their hardwood floorboards, and let us marvel at their sepia characters and their slower pace of life. Nostalgia not only feeds the soul, it's like a time-capsule of longing, a wish-you-were-here postcard from us to us, who are perhaps fed up with our rush-everywhere lives, our not knowing who our neighbours are, yet secretly enjoying cheap airflights, computers and modern medicine. Old hotels, and indeed old buildings in general, if you let them, will also test your current mental status. Not the one that says you are a CEO, have a sound financial portfolio and/or several blonde wives, but the one, that when you are alone, says, 'Hey, are you a good person?' My test results indicate that more application to study is needed.

On this day at the Captain Sturt, the barmaid was playing pool. Funny thing was, she was the only person present. Mind you, it was only ten thirty in the morning, maybe some people have to work, I don't know.

'What'll it be?'

'Pint of Bitter please. Your name Rosie?'

'Don't serve pints. You'll want either a middy, a pony or schooner. No, not your Rosie, I'm Marlene.'

'Okay Rosie I mean Marlene, I'll have the middy because I can't ride or sail. Give you a game then, that's if you don't mind asking your opposition.'

It was only pink and red balls but this didn't matter because she won easily. Being beaten by the barmaid, who was much better at reading emotional cues, was like being lost in fog; rather pleasant but you don't get a lot out of it. Some days you know you're only playing for a silver medal. Especially if there's only two in the competition and you suck. On my first game of squash at age fourteen, I got absolutely flogged. Dad said, 'Well never mind son, at least you took him to three sets.' That was like a mother's kiss.

The Crown Hotel, opened in 1861, had free Wireless Internet (possibly not on opening day, though they are progressive out here.) Checking emails after a long while has interesting promise. I wait in hope for something like, 'Yes, Mr Pritchard, you have won that short story competition' but all I had were advertisements for certain pharmaceutical items to make me grow bigger, last longer and play harder. I must remember to inform these people that I don't play football anymore.

It was now late afternoon and I had put a bet on a horse and **** my race was coming up, but the lone television in the back bar was running a football final and the locals were rather animated. The game they were watching was Australian Rules; a game played by blokes who used to be ballet dancers.

'Hoi, can you blokes turn that rubbish off so I can watch my race?' They looked at me like I was next on the menu. What I really said was, 'Excuse me fellows, any chance we could swap over so I can watch race number eight? Won't take long.'

As one of the happy patrons changed channels, he said, 'Hey mate (substitute another name here), what have you backed?'

Well Turniphead, if it's any business of yours, number twelve, came out as, 'Well old mate, I think I may have had a flutter on that one there, in the yellow and black. Thank you so much for agreeing to change channels and to have the volume turned down so I could hear it.'

I thought quietly to myself, If my horse doesn't win, I could run very fast. Just pretend I'm chasing a pig or something. My horse won by a nostril and paid $3.20 for a win. 'Fancy that,' I said nervously.

'Hey mate,' (use different name) he said as he changed channels back to his game of netball, 'How much did you have on it?'

Was he possibly thinking that because I had interrupted the viewing of a final, or that I was a big punter, that I had won a few thousand dollars?

'Wait a minute, Yep, I've got it. I had a dollar to win on that one. Hey anyway, look, I've got a great idea. What about if I shout a round for the bar?' In future, I must avoid the Crown Hotel during its dance season. Or have bigger bets.

I went into the dining room for the ten dollar specials and there, right at the next table was the canoe paddling expert. I had hoped he was dead, you know, tripped over a log or drowned. He saw me and yelled, his mouth cluttered with steak and kidney pie, 'Hey you're the bloke that can't paddle a canoe!' Thank you, and could you possibly speak a little louder you dickhead? His wife had no paper or sunnies to hide behind; she was naked this time.

'Hello and good evening to you. Yes, you are correct and I would like to thank you for the instructions, given previous, that enabled me to get past Pooncarie with such supreme skill, and safety.'

'Really?'

'Sure, you are extraordinary.'

His wife coughed into her fist, thumb and index finger touching her lips.

'Yes, and I feel that even though you are clearly a better canoeist, I thought I'd point out that your arm muscles, being quite large may perhaps indicate that maybe you have not been paddling with the correct limbs again. And, I know something you don't, this being the fact that the Sea of Galilee is fresh water. So, Big Boy, stick that in your canoe and stroke it.'

His wife, when at the Pooncarie café, fresh from purchasing men's clothes, boiling corn cobs and expressing milk, had leaned back with straight legs, now leaned forward, her elbows on the table, and clasped her hands with interlocking fingers and touching thumbs, triangling them over her chicken parmigiana. And as her husband, currently turning red and looking like a sunburnt epiglottis, pushed his chair back and stood up, unnecessarily aggressively I thought, she said, 'My husband has paddled the entire length of the Jordan River, through the fresh-watered Galilee, correct name Kinneret, and down into the Dead Sea. And, his arms, being much bigger than yours...'

'Hey, that was unnecessary and particularly hurtful.'

'...are a result of twenty years of weightlifting and martial arts, including and not exclusive of, teaching fifth Dan black belt to the SAS.'

'Yeah? So what? Anyone can break old tiles.'

And I looked past him trying to judge how long it would take me to run through the door marked 'exit'.

He pointed his finger at me, 'Watch it.'

I said, 'No, _you_ watch it, buddy.'

Why did I say that? Don't let me die here. Then I too, stood up, not quite as gracefully as he had done, and bumped my dicky knee and said, 'Oww.' I also realised that I couldn't hold my tummy in for much longer. I glanced around, giving my trained assassin look to bring fear into the room, hoping someone would interrupt the impending brawl before I had to be stretchered out. The barman, who was polishing a glass with a white tea towel thing like they do in Westerns, said, 'Hoi, you two, have a cold shower.'

I said, 'Is there perhaps a water shortage? Anyway, he started it.'

He said, 'Did not'

'Did too.'

'Stop it you pair. Don't make me come over there.'

This was clearly going to end in tears, a lengthy stay in the detention room, or I would be losing a bit of paint. I was rescued by one of the Aussie rules final watchers. He came over with a beer. He was also as big as the side of a house, had four kilograms of silver bolted throughout his face and had tattoos on every visible bit of flesh, including but not exclusive of his arms, legs and neck. This meant that not only was he extra tough, he was, as of now, on my team.

'Here big gambler, my shout.' He then sensed my aura of vicious tension and unleashed ferocity. 'Hey; we okay here?' He breathed in and stood tall, and it was with some degree of relief that I noticed he was much larger than the expert.

'Sure, everything's under control. We were just discussing the finer points of padding a canoe.'

'Oh, well you'd know plenty about that. I just heard how well you moved along near Tolarno Station above Pooncarie.'

Seconds after he left, the expert's wife said, ' _Above_ Pooncarie, did he say?'

I decided not to repeat what the big man had said. Wouldn't do any of us any good. Thought I'd leave quietly, and not have the special that evening. Watch my weight, take responsibility for my health and wellbeing. And probably stay alive for a bit longer.

When I arrived at the Royal Hotel (built in1866 and reputed to be involved in smuggling,) there were no lights on and it seemed closed, so I went around the back. Saw some youngies there, drinking, making noise. The flickering candle-light showed me that most of them were naked.

'Hello, excuse me, is the pub open? My goodness, you got a licence for that?'

'Yeah, no mate, she's not legal. Power's off but the pub is open. Beer is in the big esky over there.' Boys were hiding and the girls were glad to see me. 'Hey mate, you want to join us?'

'I will think about it. I have just thought about it. No, but thanks for asking.'

Later, when I had settled in to the hard-to-see bar, I asked the barmaid, who was hard to see, 'What are those kids doing out the back?'

'Oh, they are playing strip poker. One lass is celebrating her birthday.'

There was an old shearer, sitting low on his bar stool in a dark corner and he had a wide grin. He said, 'Birthday girl lost a bet didn't she. She walked in to the dark bar she thought was empty, looked around a bit, and then opened her coat and flashed everything she owned. Didn't see me here, did she.'

# Epilogue

..an attempt is far better than no attempt at all

David Fanshawe in _African Sanctus_

As always, returning home was exciting; the journey and the arrival. The barmaids at Tattersall's Hotel, West Wyalong, call you Love. _What can I get you love?_ At certain workplaces, even some countries I've been in, if you called someone of any gender, Love, particularly in a broad Australian accent, you would be immediately cuffed, taken out the back and beaten with a large stick. However, if said correctly, which it was in the Tattersall, it's a beautiful endearment. **** West Wyalong is a great town just for walking around. This is an important distinction because some towns aren't so. Their general ambience is shining glass and aluminium foil wrapped over cardboard. West Wyalong is a town of old cracked brick which allows its memories to escape and warm the hearts of those who walk there. It was really icy that night so I turned the electric blanket up high. They would have to be the best invention ever. Except for beer jugs. I thought of taking an electric blanket out to the river. This clearly wouldn't work because as you unrolled the cord from the canoe, it would probably get caught in a branch. Or a floating lizard. Beer jugs are a safer bet. It rained all the way back to Brisbane, so much so, that the creeks ran muddy and the water lapped the road.

Back in Brisbane, I kissed my wife and children with big wet ones, and I said, 'Let's all go and sit at the table together and drink wine and share food.' Young kids love doing this. Afterwards, I did something a little strange, which is very much out of character. I drove to Dubbo and **** went to mum and dad's grave sites. I put little flowers next to their headstones. I thought about my mum, and the tears flowed, and it wasn't a little cry, it was a bucketload for years of missingness, and all the times she showed kindness, and raised me to consider others. Which I haven't done much of. And I saw my dad, not laying out cold and grey at the morgue (which can still unnerve me) but there with me, fishing and talking about an old river, full of joy and life. I drove around town to see old things like Victoria Park in the centre of town, with its football oval, the gum tree I planted at West Dubbo Public School in 1963. I sat at Sandy Beach on the Macquarie River, where I had spent a considerably large portion of my life. I parked outside our old house and saw all our relatives gathered together on the front verandah. Perhaps seventeen hundred kilometres is a long way to drive there and back just to have a cry. Time might be our friend here to ease pain, and life does and must go on and you adjust, but the past never leaves.

Retirement was exciting and I had withdrawn enough super to pay out the house loan and live for a few years while I pretended to be a writer. My dream was airborne and while it may yet take a while to land, an attempt had been made, thank you, David Fanshawe. Anyway, how does one write a book? I guess you have to make a start because if there's nothing down on paper then there's nothing full stop. I made a list of what I thought the chapter outline would be, I went to several hundred Meet the Author gigs for ideas and I reflected on what a dear old friend had once said about a story I was writing, 'Stop fiddling around and write the bloody thing.' Or words to that effect. That was Tom Hungerford; a grand old man of literature, literally.

The return to the Darling had been better than I thought. Not just because of the adventures, the people and the fact that I had found God, twice, but because I rediscovered what the old river meant to me. Would I get out there again? Surely I couldn't keep going out to the Darling? I mean, I wanted to become a writer and writers are serious people, right? They don't wander about the countryside, they stay home and write.
PART 2

# 2011

# 15

In December 2010 major flooding swelled the Macquarie, the Castlereagh, the Namoi, the Warrego, the Paroo, the Culgoa, and the Weir Rivers, **** and most of this water ended up in the Darling. The river at Bourke went up to 12 metres. This means of course, that all the way down the Darling the water birds would nest, the fish would breed and the farmers would smile. The level of the Darling at Pooncarie when I went through in 2010 was 0.54 m. After this amount of water it rose to 6.5m. And still it rained. **** The Macintyre River at Goondiwindi (which is really the Darling) went over ten metres, which is about five centimetres below the levee. The entire Darling, like most inland rivers in the south-east of Australia in 2011, was in flood. Menindee Lakes, way downstream, were at 100% capacity so if you were on the old river now, you'd have to move the wood ducks out of your way to set up camp, if you could find a dry bit of land that is. The murray cod would be thrashing in the shallows after food and the old river red gums would be sighing with relief and sucking the water in.

We now had flooding in South East Queensland. Some thought Brisbane wouldn't flood again like it did in 1974. A lot of people actually, citizens and government alike. No more Brisbane floods, they said, Wivenhoe Dam will save us. Wivenhoe Dam, opened in 1984, was for water storage and flood mitigation. It reduced the risk of flooding to a point, sure. Anyway, if disaster came, I had credits. I had been through three one-in-a-hundred-year floods. Have grey hair soon the way things are going. Unfortunately, Brisbane did flood. (But never mind, it won't happen again.)

This flood water was now creeping up our street like a carpet snake heading for a chook pen. I walked down the street to face it. I tied a mop under my chin, raised one arm straight out and up and said sternly, ' _Thou shall not get past!'_

At one a.m. I walked out the front to see if my direction had been successful. A deep voice said, 'Don't move.'

'Sure, and any particular reason why not? I would like to go back home shortly. It's quite late you know.' Was it the old wizard, cranky because I had nicked his words?

'Are you the owner of that house?'

Not going to tell you. I didn't say this because I'm too nice. Particularly as I noticed he wore military gear, with trousers tucked into soft brown boots, and had a gun pointing at me. He also had a two metre grizzly bear on a leash.

'Yes sir! I am. Would you like me to sign it over to you?'

'Okay, settle down. just looking for looters. And listen, don't come any closer will ya, this boy is a bit toey.'

Well, how about you coil that bit of string that's holding Fido a bit tighter, or I'll have to take steps? Or even, Watch out, there's a looter right behind you. 'Yeah thanks. Anyway, I'm checking if that water there is going to get us . By-the-way, do you think you might point that thing the other way?'

What was he going to do, mow down anyone carrying a laptop? And then we would know who let the dogs out. Or was he merely on a traineeship for Israeli customs? After he announced that the swift creek over there sure was rising fast, I explained that No, that tiny creek and the lake-that-used-to-be-a-park, weren't rising just because of rain upstream, they were being backwashed by a very big river, one that was just over behind those trees there.

'Oh, you mean that's the Brisbane River coming up? To here?'

For crying out loud, who trained you in geography? Wasn't the passport employment board in Eilat, that's-for-sure. No jokes, remember the frothy dog. 'Yes mate, and they're saying this one will be a metre higher than the 1974 flood. But you weren't born then, right? So I reckon you and your chihuahua had better scram. You don't want to mess with me.'

I went out again at three a.m. and then two hours later, but the water only made it to the gutter out the front. The knowledgeable security man and his pooch weren't there; I had obviously scared him off. We escaped the flood, this time, but thousands didn't. I watched and read stories of death and sadness, and I also saw extraordinary heroism. Courage you only read about that has happened somewhere else. I saw a community come together, and leave comfort and insularity to become a city, a state and a nation. This challenged me to rethink about the What do you really believe in question. Is it more than drinking beer and bird watching? I hoped not. Sometimes we can have the luxury of choosing a belief but not this time. It was a forced thing to think about, brought on by a disaster, where everyone was called upon and they answered.

I needed to be on the Darling. Never mind Jon Snow; what would I know. It would seem that delusion still remained strong, something that I accepted as long as I didn't acknowledge it to myself too loudly. The fascination had become an obsession and I had become a stalker. Forget the excuses as justification, what I truly wanted to do was to just sit in a canoe on the Darling River and watch black cockatoos and whistling kites. Besides, I had recently been to an exhibition at the Brisbane Museum to commemorate the 150th year of the Burke and Wills Expedition and it was so bad that I thought I should go back to the lower Darling where the explorers had travelled to verify the truth. Of course this must include Menindee because this is one of the places where these explorers had stayed.

I knew I should be writing. I convinced myself that my book plan was sound and that anyway, a break from staring at a screen would enhance the final product. And so this trip, in the same red canoe as in 2010, was Menindee to Wentworth.

And what if I prepared myself for complete joyfulness and no sadness? This would be my trip of solitude and of being alone yes, but not of being lonely. There is a huge difference. What of God? Would I search again? Yes for sure, but something wasn't right with the ideal. Maybe this trip would sort it out?

# 16

If I didn't have birds to watch I would be in the gutter. Then I would scramble up and raid wheelie bins outside shopping centres and be all uncouth. Therefore, a life of suffering (and possibly a discussion with the police) has been averted because of birdwatching. Logic is one of my strong points. A dark phase brown falcon cruised through the box trees. Now I don't know about you, but there are brown falcons and there are brown falcons. The light phase looks like a gangly nankeen kestrel. These brown falcons are lanky, light brown on top with white belly feathers. They eat grasshoppers and I suspect they also carry handbags. The so-called middle phase brown falcon is a confused bird. He doesn't fully understand the benefits of being the middle child; the reason rules have been made. You know the one, where the hard yards of acceptance have already been done and you just hang onto coat tails. The dark phase brown falcon is the third sibling and as such is often an undernourished, sickly weed, who gets picked on. But not in this family. The dark phase brown falcon is more like a black falcon (and is possibly the light phase of said black falcon.) He is streamlined like a round-chested barrel and is a silent killer. When the birds call out, 'Brown falcon dark phase coming your way!' (and they can certainly tell the difference between raptors species as well as phases) the bush goes silent for around fifteen minutes. I duck for cover too. You don't want to be belted by a missile travelling at a hundred miles an hour. Bad enough being walloped by a fairy wren. Jeez they hurt. I have seen white-plumed honeyeaters studying for their exams. They draw wing profiles of falcons and goshawks, and try to trick each other by not shading in the underwing patterns correctly. 'No, that was not a black falcon adult, it was a juvenile brown falcon dark morph. Have you been spending too much time in the cafeteria, chatting up yellow-throated miners?'

They also practise identifying other birds' warning calls, because it's a team effort out there. They put in long hours, usually done late at night, their little kerosene lanterns glowing, as they do role plays and scare the bejesus out of each other, and not a few neighbours. 'Listen, will you let us know next time if it's just a drill?' And the hard-working honeyeaters know that one successful test a year is enough to get them an arts degree with a double major in language awareness, both vital in the bird-eat-bird struggle along the Darling River. And the educational bodies know that their league-tabled results will be watched by discerning honeyeater parents, and the federal bird-brain party (an inbred mob of galahs) which shell out tax-payer money on the amount of A levels, their own airfare expenditure and claims for nest fitouts.

Even with knowledge of what the lantern glows mean, the dark phase brown falcon remains steadfast and stealthy, like a yet-to-be-built French-Australian submarine, maybe to be built in France, Adelaide, or even at Sandy Beach, West Dubbo, we're not sure yet it depends on a xenophobic party, and strikes with a cheeky confidence.

A dad peewee with a deep voice, and child, were on a dead branch, just piping their calls, _b-learp b-learp_ , and making their wings go in and out as they called, like a set of bellows. But they weren't bellowing, they were fairly quiet. They used to be blacksmiths before computers came in. This was clearly an instruction lesson and junior was copying his dad, which is what kids should do, and they were standing on an exposed dead branch. Now our dark phase brown falcon, not the light phase in a netball skirt or the cross-dressing bludging middle phase, was cruising, think what you will, and speared toward our peewees. The peewees ignored the warning calls, thinking it was a drill, and the falcon belted the youngster on the back of the head, and then kept going. Hang on a tick, you don't kill and eat him, no, you just beat the crap out of him and fly away. That falcon clearly needed some serious behaviour management to curb his bullying attitude. 'Now Brian, I want you to write out _I must not hurt birds_ _I must only eat them_ one hundred times before first break. Got it?'

The young peewee fluttered to the ground hanging on to the back of his head going Oww, and a few feathers drifted down, backwards and forwards like feathers do when they fall, and landed in the dust next to him. Dad peewee rushed down. Didn't ask, 'Hey son, you okay?' No, he said, 'Wow son, did you see that?' secretly glad it wasn't him. Little peewee started crying. Dad peewee brushed his sideburns, cleared his throat and said, in his trademark voice so low that walruses in Greenland dove in the icy water and headed for Australia, 'Now son, let's not tell your mother about the falcon thing, okay? This is just between us, you know, a father-son bonding thing.'

'Sure Dad,' he whimpered, 'Sure.'

As they flew back home, young peewee, who was leaning to the port side, saw his mother from fifty kilometres away. 'Mum! Mum! You'll never guess what happened this arvo!'

And as she comforted and cuddled her precious baby with a wing wrapped around his battered little body, as he told her of the four peregrines that attacked just him, she didn't say anything to dad peewee, she just gave him The Look. That's all, no reprimands, no, What were you thinking, just, The Look. Right now, every male on the planet (those who are reading this anyway) is going, Yep, Uh-Huh. Even male walruses would say this because they understand many octaves as much as they understand the vagaries of child truth. Where did I get walruses from?

Spiders make webs in the red gum forest and some of these webs covered around ten square kilometres, and caught low flying aircraft. Can you ever begin to imagine the size of the spiders who made these webs? Sometimes these webs were so vast their span was world-wide. A white-plumed honeyeater, on his way home from the School of Identifying Raptors, got stuck in such a web. When he hit, the web was like a trampoline in slow motion. The spider advanced towards the honeyeater, who was currently thinking that his mother would tell his father, who had recently returned home from painting the Lands office building in Bourke, 'Well husband, that boy of yours needs a floggin', that's if he survived, but our spider decided that No, today, I'm not that hungry and besides I have plenty of other things, like F111s, Sopwith Camels and hang gliders safely wrapped up. And he walked, long-legged, along his special path, back to his hiding place, which wasn't really hidden, because when your eight legs span around 2.8m it's difficult to be secretive. The honeyeater, even though he thought he was safe now, struggled, and I thought the big sleep would be coming his way regardless of his unhungry captor, but as he was hanging upside down, he wriggled his shoulders a bit with both his wings folded against his body, got his feet together with his claws all scrunched, then leaned up and picked the web from around them, like a woodpecker pecks. Must have been paying attention in second class. He then fell like an arrow into the water, fluttered around for a bit, then flew home.

'Hey mum, you'll never guess what happened to me today.'

'No, really? Told you school was worthwhile. You haven't been in the cafeteria have you? Listen, your father wants to see you.'

One morning at sunrise as I sat and drank coffee, which I did most mornings when I had coffee, I saw a million white-browed wood swallows greeting the sun. And that's what they were doing, flying in a loose formation celebrating a new day, their little faces turned upward. One big bunch of sun-worshippers catching a few rays, flying in and out of itself, not wheeling in one big synchronous mob, like homing pigeons. The swallows flew up high, criss-crossed and dodged and recharged their solar panels then came back down. How did they not crash? They were chattering non-stop, a pleasant peeping call, not unlike budgerigars, while the leader was trying to keep the focus happening. 'Now listen,' he said, 'I want you all to go back and land and practise again. You can't be just flying any which way or you'll lose. We've got a long way to go and we need to be a team.'

But like schoolkids when the afternoon bell rings, they weren't listening. These happy little birds had forgotten that they would soon be flying thousands of kilometres north. They were just enjoying the joy. When the mob did finally land and stayed landed, scattered on the tops of several black box trees, budgerigars joined them, perhaps being attracted by the similar language. And they all flew to the ground together, chittering like Narromine ladies talking over a paling fence. I watched these birds for two hours, and I thought, Is this not a special moment? Is this not the beauty of nature? Yes it was, and I was on my Darling River again.

# 17

Darryl Cowie, the proprietor of the Burke and Wills Motel in Menindee, said, 'Yes, sure you can leave your ute at the motel' and, Would I like a hand to unload? **** To meet such a gentleman was the perfect start to this trip. As I pushed out into the Darling from behind Maiden's Hotel at Menindee and joined the river proper in April 2011, I looked over the side, Okay little green and pink floating azolla ferns, take me with you as you are swept along on your journey. Azolla is a floating fern that comes from outer space when floods arrive and gets carried along with the current. Didn't mean it wouldn't get waylaid in a swamp or jammed up against a log, but there was always plenty swirling along, guiding me to new adventures, and more than enough to show where the main river was.

The Darling was in minor flood, which meant that although at times it broke both banks and went off into the forests or onto the plains, there was just enough dry land on the claypan banks to make a camp.

Here was the beauty of a flood on the Darling. Yellow-billed spoonbills, black cormorants, five-hundred wheeling pelicans and inside corners crowded with nankeen night herons. These nocturnal herons would croak and bash through the leaves when they saw me. Obviously they sleep with those eye-patch things and can't get them off in time when they are surprised.

On the inside of the bends where the sandy beaches used to live, I could hear the gum trees drinking, and they were making far too much noise for me to camp there. So the outside bends became home each night. The inside bends being inundated may have also influenced the outside bend camping thing. I was a bit indifferent at first with the white clay, spikey bushes and box trees of the Outside, and I had a 'You're second best but I'll still love you anyway' attitude. Quite uncalled for, it seems, because with time true love came, and I soon looked forward to the soft early morning and late afternoon blue and yellow light that was so clear it made the starkness welcoming. This contrasted with the river, which was currently an olive colour, having left its milky-teaness for a while. Glory can come to us in many forms, perhaps even disguised.

Because I was paddling the exact same part of the Darling as last year, I used the same maps. This was a master move on my part because it meant that I could compare distances travelled and also save lots of money rebuying the same maps. As it is, all the walls at home are plastered with maps. There are no family photos, no windows and no doors. To get inside our house, you have to lower yourself through the ceiling on a rope. I used a different coloured pen to write things on these reused maps, such as each campsite, as well as important comments, like; _Beautiful log here_ , or, _Met Bob the fisherman on this bend_. I decided that this year's comments would be even more valuable than last year. For example; _Ha, got further on day two this year (9/4/11_ ). I'm very competitive. The maps only showed the windy river bits which had been cut out of the larger map. I then pasted these onto thick art paper and stored them in cliplock plastic bags. As a safety precaution, because I am smart, I separated these maps and only had the current one accessible in the canoe so that if I lost this one, well it would only be one map and not all of them. Clever is my middle name.

As I left the camp about to start onto map #2, which was a long one, and settled in to my routine of getting into the canoe without falling out, and then not falling out once I was in, I couldn't see my map where I would normally place it, which was directly in front of me on the bottom of the canoe, often with a forty kilogram rock on top so it wouldn't blow out. Total panic took over. Now if you're on a river, I realise that you just have to follow the bloody thing and you will get somewhere, as opposed to a walk through the desert or a rainforest. But still, I like to know where I am. I immediately pulled in and raced back to the campsite. I searched for two hours, I unloaded the canoe, I looked in the water, I looked up the bank. Then did it all over again. I then realised that it was gone for good. I'm slow at some things. There were only two explanations: one, someone had snuck into camp while I wasn't looking and had stolen it, or two, the wind, of which there was none, had blown it into the river. If it was explanation number one, why would the bad people only steal a map, when they could easily have stolen my bent copy of _Three Men in a Boat_ by Jerome K. Jerome or my jewellery, which was hidden amongst the underwear? And if it was explanation number two, then she was gone forever. Either way, a very bad lapse in camp discipline on my part. Next thing I would probably paddle off and leave the tent. Or swim away and forget the canoe. I once rode my pushie without a helmet. I just forgot it. Dementia here I come.

I knew roughly where I was and I reckoned in around five days I would be on the next map, which would then be bolted to the crossbar of the canoe. But can I say it was a little unnerving not to have a map. Three days later, I was still muttering under my breath about how you just can't trust anyone these days, and as I paddled next to the very thick azolla that spun in spirals that were really nebulae, and whirlpools that were really whirlpools, I saw something small and triangular poking up out of these natural occurrences, with dirty water, mud and weeds dripping off it, and I thought, Now that's what a cliplock bag with map #2 in it would look like if it were floating along the Darling River caught in a moving carpet of azolla. I think I yelled an Argghhh sort of yell, quite loudly I believe, and reached over and carefully picked up my cliplock plastic bag with Map #2 inside. Obviously the people who had stolen it realised that it had no value for them and had tossed it into the river. The way things are going around here, I may have to get a padlock for my tent.

# 18

The outside bank as a place of camping had several problems. Apart from the sound of my quiet sobbing because I couldn't set the tent up on an inside corner sandy beach, there were many things to consider. For example:

1. A question of timing. Sometimes for several kilometres, there was no land available for camping. The water would be spread for miles across the land, and therefore it was far too difficult to reach under water to peg the tent, and besides, sleeping in cold water just wasn't my thing anymore. So I would check the map, look at where the sun was, and then look at the bank. And do this several times, hoping that each time I looked up something would maybe be different. Like when it's late at night and you're hungry and you look in the fridge. There's nothing there, but you go back ten minutes later just in case when you weren't looking someone has bought chocolates and things and has stashed them in the door next to the milk and eggs. The sun doesn't move much, as you know, it's the earth that spins around, like a massive brown, green and blue floating thing, that appears to turn in slow motion. That's if you were up there looking down. And as I ponder over space and time and whether I will camp just there, I find it fairly hard to comprehend that a lump of rock and water with a mass of six quadrillion kilograms ('Hey George, can you give us a hand to lift this one onto the scales?') spinning around at approximately one thousand six-hundred and seventy-five kilometres per hour could give us day and night and the stuff in between.

2. Getting out of a canoe in deep water next to a steep bank has got disaster written all over it. I needed to run the canoe up onto a shallow bit of water, test the depth with the paddle, and quickly step out into the water and mud. If it was a steep bit of bank under the shallow water, then I would slide, usually backwards, until the water went over my head and the canoe drifted down to Victoria without me. Or, if the mud under the water was really soft, then I would sink, rather slowly, like an African explorer disappearing into quicksand, waving my arms about trying to lay flat because that's what will stop you going-all-the-way. Not a moment wasted in my childhood choice of black and white movies at the Saturday matinees that I went to every Saturday because we didn't have television. And while I was levitating on quicksand the canoe would continue to South Australia.

'Where's Tony who should be sitting in this canoe?'

'Oh, someone said they saw him laying flat like a star just below Menindee.'

3. You're all thinking that next must be snakes, and if I saw a snake in round one of the possible camp inspections, then it's back in the canoe I go. If that was one of the considerations, then I'd probably never camp on land, or sit in the canoe, as you will see a bit later. Brochures and articles pronounce, 'If you leave snakes alone, they will leave you alone.' It is quite obvious that some snakes cannot read. We're not talking treading on the poor blighters. Someone treads on me I would bite them too. The above statement is aimed at suburban people who go bush for a picnic in the wilderness, usually just outside the city limits so they can put the four-wheel drive into four-wheel drive. And get mud on it, and when the boss gets home he washes the mud off with a Gerni that is so powerful it strips the paint off. 'Jeez Alan', he says to his neighbour who is leaning over the paling fence, 'Had a tough time this weekend. Shoulda seen me. Up ninety degree cliffs and through raging rivers with the water three metres over the bonnet. Lucky I tied that bit of gauze in front of the radiator grill.'

These day trippers take lots of wine and beer, and the womenfolk, who always have fair hair and pretty blue eyes, show fantastic preparation by wearing skimpy singlet tops and leather sandal things. That's all they wear, and without a hat. All the men wear is blue singlets and thongs. 'Hon, can you pass the blockout?' And the boyfriends, after consuming several hundred beers, will become Warriors. They will see a snake, one of the ones who listened well in Reading for Snakes 102, slithering away. That's what snakes do; they glide over the land in a liquid hypnotic movement. The girlfriend, who has seen and heard her bloke suck his tummy in, which she first thought was a jet passing over, or a Masonite wobble-board in overdrive, realises there's a snake out there somewhere, and she will hold her clenched hands up near her chin and squeal. The bloke will try to kill this snake, even if it has legs, not because he is a trained snake-handler, or trained killer, but because he must be seen to be tough. That's if he wants some credibility, and possibly some loving later on. Some will succeed, with killing the snake I mean, but some will get bitten. By the snake. And the newspaper will report this as an unprovoked attack by a vicious venomous snake in downtown Brisbane.

I would still camp at a spot even if I saw a snake.

4. The next thing to watch out for are ants. They are the most dangerous creature on the Darling during a flood. You need a bare portion of white dry clay to camp on, because on the outside bend there are thousands of short prickly bushes, and even when they're dead, they scratch something fierce. Sometimes maroon meat ants live on these bare bits. Their trails between mounds are meat-packed with scurrying city commuters, all crossing an intersection at the same time because the four walk signs are green and as they pass, ants touch one another. Hi John. Hey Susan. You need an excellent memory to be a meat ant. Their trails are so old they have worn the soil down into a canal about ten metres deep, which is just slightly deeper than a kangaroo pad. And you don't want to camp anywhere near this because these ants will run up your legs and bite little annoying bites. And when you whack them off they smell like old corn beef. A corned-beef of meat ants. Next is the bulldog ants, and these little babies will attack even without provocation. If you whistle and pretend you're just having a little stroll and say out loud, 'No, I'm not thinking of camping anywhere near this perfect piece of bare claypan. What? Don't be silly, I was just birdwatching' these ants will know you're lying. They can tell just by looking at you. 'Ha, have a go at this one Bill. He's even got binoculars as a disguise. Let's get him boys.' And while meat ants will seem annoyed, these bulldog ants take aggression to a new level. They frown and clench their teeth and their attacks are relentless. They use short knives at the front and a stinger at the back so lethal it resembles a drill press on full revs. They jump and spar like boxers outside a tent at the local showground and then like a swarm of soldiers coming over the hill, can surround you in seconds.

As you can see, considering the pressure I faced each afternoon, it was a miracle I got to sleep each night.

# 19

After this flooded river trip of 2011, apart from the, Didn't you get sick of mud and the same looking river each day questions, there were the mosquito questions. 'Tony,' they said, projecting a lack of belief that I had a brain (although there may have been reasons for this) 'didn't the flies and mozzies drive you nuts?' No, I would say, I have plenty of other things I let do that.

Along the Darling during summer there were indeed flies but this trip was done in April so that only left the mosquitoes. When I say mosquitoes, I don't mean those little whining things you might see on a late arvo picnic, just before the snakes attack. No, I'm talking about insects that were larger than wood ducks and sounded like hornets with a loudspeaker. And in this April flooding time, the cycle of bitey things was in full swing. Kangaroos hopped into trees to avoid insects, which may be effective in killing perhaps two or three of them (the kangaroos), but really it's a short term solution because there are far too many insects. Not to mention the headaches incurred.

In the seventies an old bushie passed onto me a secret, one, he said, that had been passed onto him from the ancient Egyptians, and even a couple of young ones. (While the shops open, Egyptian culture wasn't ancient. Ancient culture is the original Australians, who were wandering about this land at least 50,000 years before the Egyptians even considered opening a geometry textbook, worshipping feral cats or painting white ibis.) The old bushie said, 'Make a mixture one third baby oil, one third Metho and one third Dettol, rub it on and no mosquito will ever bite you.' I have patented this (before the big pharmacies, corporations and his family members get wind) and 100% of the profits go to the old bushie with a default to me when he carks it. And because his formula was given to me over forty years ago and as he was a little over four thousand years old then, I will therefore need three accountants just to add up my fortune. When you rub it on, the oil (I now use olive oil) keeps the mixture on. the Dettol component stings like blazes because you will have thousands of scratches and the Metho addition means it's probably a good idea not to get too close to the campfire, but my goodness, it works. The mosquitoes will come at you as a black cloud of death, and they will be really angry because they know they can't get you. They scream like an airbus starting its run and you can have a little fun with this because they always stay the same distance away. So you can run a few steps and stop and keep repeating this. They don't appreciate the humour and beware if you have missed a bit on the back of your neck, because if you have you will be lining up with the kangaroos. And if that's the case, for goodness sake, don't push in because kangaroos have a strong sense of fair play and they can get pretty annoyed.

# 20

Why do birds have different calls? This must have been difficult to organise. Why not all sound the same and just have different names for each other as they talk, like humans do? The English speaking ones anyway. Although that would be quite difficult for a prince albert lyrebird, because I have counted six different species being imitated. King parrot here, no just tricking; or, crimson rosella? Har, got you again, it's just me, Albert. Of course any birds on Social Security Benefits would have to write down their name each time so the Case Manager would know who it was. They couldn't be asked their mother's maiden name over the phone because you wouldn't know which bird it really was. It might be a black-faced cuckoo shrike or an oriental cuckoo. 'Says here on your form that you're black. What, you say you're a peewee? Yeah right, you might be a pied butcher bird for all I know. You'll have to come in so I can see who you are, because all you birds sound the same. Sure you're not a crow?'

'But I can't come in today, I'm teaching the kids how to dodge brown falcons.'

'Well I'm sorry ma'am, but today is your last day to lodge Form 202, otherwise your benefits will cease. There's been budget cuts you know. The government has decided, for the first time (this year anyway), to target black birds. By-the-way, if you are indeed a peewee, how's that husband of yours? Looking after the kids okay?'

If the birds all sounded the same they could have different accents, then they could be identified over the phone.

'Barry from the First Australian Bank here, yes yes, I got your date of birth, but can you speak more slowly? That accent of yours is pretty hard to understand. Do you moonlight by any chance?'

'Why yes, I am an owl. How did you guess who I was?'

I can see now why there are different bird calls. Otherwise the entire phone system would be irrelevant and there'd be massive unemployment in call centres in India, the Philippines and Bogan Gate. 'Good morning, this is Freddy here, would you like to buy a gate?'

There is an amazing animal that makes no sound, none that I could hear anyway and this is a spider. At night, they have pretty blue eyes that sparkle with such health and vitality, that they are used in television ads for laxatives. 'Thousands of spiders can't be wrong. You too can be beautiful and shine on the outside if your inside is clean.' **** There are thousands of these little blue shining lights, and they scurry about like upside down stars on the ground. You can see their shiningness from fifty metres and if you were to shine your torch down and you saw, for example, a lanky grey trapdoor, and they have a leg span of around a metre, you would be pleased that you had shoes on that night. But if you get too close to these spiders, they close their eyes. If you stay there with the torch on, it's like trying to outstare someone in reverse.

Real stars don't move as fast, and they don't go the sunrise-sunset route either. They sort of twist around on a flat plane, like a discus. You'd need quite a large hand for that one. As it gets darker, the stars go from a white light to a clear cobalt blue. If you look to the side, a sort of indirect look to trick them, they twinkle. They are calling out to you, trying to lure you up into the sky so you will crash onto hidden asteroid logs or satellites in your night canoe. The Sirens of the night sky. There are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy and I know this because one night when I had nothing better to do, I counted them. Two hundred billion and one... Hey Tony want a cup of tea? What? No thanks, be right, bit busy at the minute. Damn; have to restart now. **** Sometimes stars sneak down to the tops of the gum trees (it's much slower but an easier way to count them). They always come in pairs. One night I saw two stars touch the leaves ever so lightly in a graceful dance. Touching yet floating, elegant yet raw. Stars obviously have hollow bones and feathers.

# 21

Last year I was asked, 'Did you trail a lure as you paddled?' Well no, because the river then was so low, any lure would be hitting the bottom and getting caught on snags every ten seconds. Besides, often you have to work a spot a few times, not just hope as you pass through. The strength that comes from hope doesn't always gift a reward. Perhaps faith and hope are related to wishful thinking. 'Now that we have a full river this year Tony, did you use a lure as you paddled?' Again no, because apart from the lure being swept past, if you did catch a sixty-pound murray cod you would then be towed around for several days, tipped out, then dragged under a log and you would drown.

However, I did like to stand on the bank next to a deep hole and cast a lure. I have had some good strikes, and even caught a couple, particularly with a floating lure. And occasionally I set the rod with bait. I had a new Alvey reel and it fitted nicely onto my father's fishing rod which I had inherited, and I treasured this rod because it was worth a million dollar's worth of memories.

I found a beautiful spot to camp, even had huge gums, which was unusual for an outside bend. I set the rod, and its new reel, deep into the soft clay with a very fat shrimp on to tempt a fish. I even looped a bell, a boot polish tin and nut, onto the rod, just-in-case. First there was a big bite, and the bell clanged loudly. I raced over, and watched the line bounce. Now, when carp bite, they usually suck, but a cod doesn't mess about. They are the masters of the Darling River and they bite hard, real hard, no pussyfooting around. I had my hand just over the line, ready to grab it if it shot out tightly and screamed through the water. Within a quarter of a second, the rod bent double, the line hissed through the water, and the rod snapped at ground level, and vanished into the river. I was left stunned and holding empty air, if there is such a thing to be held. On the map I wrote, _Place where rod and reel live_ put the date on and circled it.

As I sat in the mud behind the massive old gum tree watching the river where the rod and reel had vanished a pair of wood ducks swam past, muttering to themselves. They looked at me and kept talking. I understood them because I speak nine languages, one of which is wood duck (plus cloud, wave and bad). 'Hey Donald, this looks a great spot. Woo, who's the lanky dude?'

'Yo Doreen, he seems okay. He's not moving much anyway. Think he must be a bit sad. Let's just hop up here anyway.'

'Here' was about two metres away and considering the abundance of duck poo, they and several thousand family members had been there every evening for the past eight thousand years. They waddled out of the water, shook their tail feathers, and as they preened their wings, looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. They were just tricking with the feather thing, I could tell. They are perfection for the Darling River, and as much as I love my whistling kites, wood ducks are up there too. I thought, as I watched them shuffle their feathers, I probably know your parents. And I know that when you were a duckling last September, how you got down to the water from a tree hollow that was five or so metres up. I wondered, whether, if I came back to this spot on a low river, would I find my dad's fishing rod, my new reel and a fish skeleton? Or just more wood duck progeny.

# 22

Were there lots of dangerous things floating down the flooded Darling River? 'Hell yes, you should have seen it, stuff careering about all over the place. I tell you each day I dodged moss-covered trunks hurtling past, paddled around sheets of corrugated-iron, and had to watch out for dead cows looming up from behind ready to take me out.' All I really saw were two beer cans and an empty lolly packet. No, there were no dangerous things floating down the river. At this point I have not yet found a reasonable explanation as to why I lie.

I saw a plastic bottle, a two litre clear one, bobbing around and diving hither and thither. I paddled over and picked the bottle up and gave it a squeeze. Attached to it was a green cord pulled taut and going away into the depths of the Darling River, and on the other end a very large fish. It felt heavy and was very strong. Maybe it was an elephant on holidays, SCUBA diving. This elephant had the line wound around a log, and I would pull and he would kick back, like a see-saw around a branch. This was the result of a fishing line that had been set on a floating bottle. People do this, they chuck them out into the current and go find them the next day. It is usually quite effective. But why would someone do this on a flooded river? The bottle could be in North America by daybreak on the following day. My dilemma was two-fold. Firstly, this fishing line thing was not mine, because I knew I hadn't set it, and having been raised to do the right thing (telling lies doesn't count, because sometimes the greatest truth is a lie), it was not mine to have. Secondly, should I then go and leave it, because it's not mine, and possibly leave the elephant hooked on it to drown? It sounds weird but fish do drown. Or do I cut the cord and give it at least some chance?

One day I saw a shingleback lizard floating along like a discarded toy. Beautiful creatures these; they have big dark-brown scales and two heads. Unlike Queenslanders who have both theirs on top of their shoulders, these lizards have one head at each end. They are also called bog-eyed lizards. Now, my bog-eye was not only dead but freshly dead. I know this because I squeezed him and he was still fairly soft.

'So on your trip, did you often squeeze lizards to see if they were dead or alive?'

'Hell yeah, I would squeeze anything I could get close enough to. One day, I squeezed a four metre tiger snake, to see if he was alive, but he wouldn't keep still.'

I spoke to my recently deceased lizard. I said, 'Dear little bog-eye, I have spoken with death several times and our discussions were not genial. He just wants to take, rarely gives back and so I know what he's like. I am sorry you died.'

We said our goodbyes, and life went on, well for one of us anyway. And like map #2 floating in the recovery position, I saw little bog-eye three days later. This is stranger than it appears because you think of the chances of this happening. The water rushed through forests, there were thousands of low branches, and then there was the logistics of me actually meeting little bog-eye in the middle of the azolla channel. Again, we parted company. Then, you're not going to believe this, but a further five days later, after I had taken a couple of shortcuts, and he could have been in the river proper while I was gallivanting through gum trees, I came across him again. It was a sign for sure. I picked him up out of the water, and stroked his heads and said, 'Goodbye again old chap. Even though you don't talk much because you are dead, you have been a true travelling companion.'

I have booked when and how I will die, but there are times when I wonder if I might get an early phone call. And when last drinks are done, will someone then toss me into the Darling River, and a lone drifter see my azolla-encrusted body, several times over a week or so and squeeze me to see if I'm still alive? Or will they walk away from me like I was considering doing with the hither and thither plastic bottle cord? Or did I cut it?

# 23

There are times when self-talk becomes disappointing. Not because I can't tell myself new jokes but because it can often lead to despair. But on this day I had a reflective revelation, one that truly sorted out how I thought about God. I knew my old river would come good. Last year, when I spoke with the fisherman at weir 32 and when I drifted past the fishing grandpa I thought I had seen God, right there. And they sure were powerful moments. But was it God? Who or what was this God? I needed to discuss this one further.

I wanted a non-religious God, that was a given. I wanted freedom from religious rules because set rules that were enforced by either physical, mental or emotional subjugation denied freedom of the spirit. Not to mention abusing our current legal system. If I could explore a God without fear or guilt then that seemed like a good start. This wasn't the first time we had had this talk you understand, but this time we nailed it. My God would not try to rule me, advise me or allow someone to fondle me in his name. I wanted to look up to a God, to an ideal that rose above the rubbish in the world, and to be able to see that he or she was beautiful and I could say, 'Hey I want to be like that, I want to do things like that.' I saw God as a singular item, a one-stop role model, a simple form to fill in with no specified fields, blue or black pen acceptable. An ideal that, by his or her actions (which would be flawless, yet human) would let me safely aspire to peacefulness and love and I would know that I was doing my best and accepted for who I was at that time. But before last year's trip, I hadn't known how or where to look. I knew that this old river was special. Maybe there was something else there, waiting. I thought I'd found it last year; but something wasn't right. The two men and the situations I had seen them in were beauty, love and kindness rolled into one, but the concept of God hadn't been right. It was too close to the religious, it was too not-real in the whole scheme of the planet and whatever else was out there. I suspected that the realm of Godness cannot be narrowed down to one thing, one concept. So I suggested to myself, I said, 'Tony, let's leave the word and concept of God out and see what is left. What do you reckon?'

And Tony answered thusly, 'Sure. What I saw were special things that had deep emotion, kindness, giving, love; beautiful moments in a special place.'

'Well done you. Have an extra spoonful of sugar in your tea. (Haven't you said that to me before?) Do you think these special things could happen again, but say, somewhere else? As in, not at your special place, aka a muddy river?'

And there it was, the start of the revelation. 'You mean, not on the Darling? Okay, maybe, no, not really, yes of course.'

'So, now that we've cleared that one up, can we now have these special moments, possibly able to happen anywhere, and even without God involved? Religious or otherwise?'

'Guess so, maybe sort of.'

'I agree, particularly with your decisiveness. However, our next question in the quiz of life to consider is this: How do you make them happen in this anywhere place?'

He had me there because weir 32 and the grandpa had no fat-free diet, no supplements and no years of strenuous training. They were the, 'Hey you, let's run a marathon right now.' They were a shock, like being whacked over the head with a fish, and I can tell you, that is rather quick and effective. Okay, I was out here on my river but that place had now been put in its place. Or, if the fish that had just whacked you over the head was a plaice...never mind. I had been ready by virtue of situation but why could I not train my mind to pretend either I was on the old river, or that I was ready anywhere? Revelation you are mine. Taken a while but slow is my middle name.

So God was gone, finished, see you later, and in his place we had what? Moments, moments of what? Great beauty, of pure love and deep emotion, that's what. Almost spiritual. Hang on, why almost? Was that not it? That these moments were spiritual, and deeply so? I like talking to myself. But how do you bring on the spiritual?

And so now, with God sent to the principal's office, do I search for the spiritual in every day? Do I look in everything, or do I even have to look? I say yes to both. But how does one prepare for these? Or more to the point, should one prepare? And how many moments of spiritual divinity had I missed anyway? Never mind in trips down the Darling, I mean in the previous sixty-five years. I then decided that there was spirituality in everything and that this would be a rewarding pursuit, one that would, by its self-talk be intellectually enriching to me (and probably no-one else still drawing breath.) I should be paid to stop talking. But is there spiritualness in doing particular things? Like fishing? Birdwatching? Of course there must be. But those are mine. Not saying I won't share, mind you, if you talk when I'm watching bitterns or disturb me when I'm fishing there could be trouble. Maybe some people feel the universe within them when they make clothes? Or run, or do domestic chores? I was really getting into this.

I made a list of things that I thought were prerequisites to me having a spiritual moment no matter what or where this moment was:

Slowness. (All of West Dubbo is in here.)

Self-acceptance. (On a world scale, three people at last count.)

External acceptance. (Border control, police and the court system flourish with this one.)

Stop searching and live life. (John Lennon was all over this.)

Being in the market for a new and/or used spiritual moment, I thought I'd run a test drive here on the old river. I handed in my photocopied driver's licence, checked the odometer had not been rewound, tested the tyre-tread was okay (a matchstick,) and away I went.

I would drift slowly, really slowly. I would accept myself on this day as I was. I would not talk to myself, have no seeking, no doubts. Maybe the fishing inspector would spear by and be my external acceptance person? (This happened later.) And as I planned it so I then let it go to see what would happen. Which is interesting because what else is plannable, foreseeable and predictable, followed by a Let's see what happens? If this worked maybe I could change my subconscious and thereby be in control of it?

So there I was, in the canoe relaxed and waiting to see what I saw. I had a mind full of nothingness. I draped my hand through the water and thought, You're kidding me; is this stuff real? I stopped and touched every log, some grey and smooth, some green and slippery. I heard distant thunder and saw sweeping clouds of destruction crossing the sky; I took my shoes off and walked on the soil. I awed at the tall trees and the small trees, all taking part in a profusion of living and giving (and they knew it). I re-painted the grass with a green and yellow wash, and I heard swifts, who were way up there at 10,000 feet talking to one another. They were whispering too.

I liked the way this day turned out and I bought the car.

# 24

When I left for the initial quest for God in 2010, I was asked if I was looking for something bigger than myself. Well yes, for starters the gum trees would be, wouldn't they? Some people are so silly. Give me a few minutes and I'll do up a list of things that are bigger than me. I suppose spirituality is bigger than the self, but that sounds trite and even demeaning. Better? Same thing maybe worse. Adding to? Awful. Along with? Yuk. How about A part of? Thank you.

I feel a part of the stars because when I look up at night I never feel insignificant. I can do that well enough without it being night time. But when I look at the stars I never have the, 'I am a nothing' feeling, ever. I can understand that some humans are small fry in the universe, or one of them anyway, and it would be easy to have a view that indicated nothingness, fear, or even futility, and I also understand that some humans, possibly the same ones as before, are nuts. Before you say, Listen mate, speak for yourself, answer me this: Do you think that people who are cruel to others are mean (or worse)? Do you think that people who destroy their own home (talking about the rather large rotating one) are stupid? I apologise if the above does not apply to you, I really do. However, when you have a minute to take leave from your cave, could you please let me know how you attained sainthood? I feel better now. Sorry.

Looking at the stars gives me great joy and maybe, just maybe, the universe needs me. I'm not exactly sure why as yet but I truly feel majestic and a part of it all (possibly because I'm still above ground and therefore am able to contribute further to humankind's misery.) I also realise that if I were to suddenly vanish, as in die and blend into the soil, the Earth would still rotate. It might wobble a bit at my passing but I suspect it would soon right itself. But what a place we have, what magnificence. Stare at a river for a while; watch it ripple and flow. See the lightning and hear thunder and, apart from moving away from trees and metal objects, wonder how the hell it works. Add to this list, the soil, trees, grass, animals, everything, connected yet disconnected in a known yet with so much unknown, and perhaps welcomingly unknowable.

When I was a kid, I decided that the natural world doesn't care about us. It has no referees, no time out so it can reconsider its actions, and that flood that has just smashed your house is not going on report with a high probability of missing three matches. But nor do we care for the natural world.. And then nature reacts to those changes (without meaning to be personal) and changes our lives. Reciprocity with special effects **** without sending it upstairs.

I used to think that if I ate no meat then the natural world would show no fear and accept me. Me and Hiawatha. But how could I let the animals know that No, I will not eat you? Lay down and bare my throat? That could be dangerous. I could imagine a species that I had almost made extinct from my predatory nature getting even. Perhaps I could tinkle a wee bell? Like a town crier in the bush. 'Hear ye, hear ye. Today dear creatures, I will only be eating zucchinis and milk thistles.' Tinkle, tinkle. And they would believe me. Goats would let me snuggle into their hot little bodies at night (and if you've never slept with a goat, get a wriggle on,) and kangaroos would let me stroke their fur (both ways). The joeys, with their head and lanky legs projecting out of their mother's pouch in a yoga-defying position would nuzzle me in acceptance and let me put my hand in their mother's pouch. Birds would hop onto my shoulder - emus the exception - and therefore my identifying skills would be totally out there. 'Again, Pritchard has surpassed the Australian twitching record. How does he do this? His descriptions of colour and character are so detailed it's like he is there next to them.' Sucked in baby. I know now that this would never work. My older-person's cynicism is not the issue here, it's just that it doesn't worry me to kill things and eat them. With no holidays, weekends or overtime. Would save a lot of effort though if I was tricky. Stroke stroke then grab. Even though I have and will kill things to eat them, I am not cruel. It may sound odd but there's a big difference. But am I stupid? Not particularly proud of the fact, but yes, certainly so. Hypocritical too.

# 25

Easter is a special time for those who believe. I was not one of those, or so I kept telling myself. Fooling myself seems to be the plat du jour (been on the specials' chalkboard for a while). Because I had nothing better to do in 2008, I thought I would return to Jerusalem.

Entry, and sometimes exit, through Israel's passport control is an enlightening experience. These are places full of warmth and genuine welcoming and I prefer those in Israel to Jordan, Syria and the side door of the Royal Hotel in Macquarie Street, Dubbo. (Trying to enter the Royal Hotel after hours in the sixties was fierce. Particularly when you may have been under eighteen years of age.) After crossing the no man's land between Egypt's Sinai and Israel's Eilat, I entered a building and continued to marvel at the efficiency and compassion of Israel's finest. (I had flown El Al in the seventies, and had passed through Israeli customs, both ways, and lived to tell, so I had an insight.)

There were two young women, stunningly beautiful as all Israeli women are, laden with machine guns, handguns and slingshots, doing their job in such a fashion that it should be emulated by all passport control, customs and bouncers at department stores. One had a young backpacker fellow held up against the wall, one hand on his throat, and his feet weren't touching the floor. The other was berating a young female backpacker so harshly that the backpacker was sobbing. After the two shaken travellers were whisked into a side room for further questioning, flogging, deportation or worse, it was my turn.

'Why do you want to come into Israel?'

'I wish to travel to Gaza and the West Bank.' (I really said Jerusalem.)

'I asked you why, not where.'

Sorry, your crankiness. 'I want to witness the timeless alignment of three great religions.'

'What for? Are you nuts?'

What for? I already answered that you great dummy. And am I nuts? Hmm, you might have a point there. Because I am a confused Aussie, and that, your hot highness, answers both your totally irrelevant questions, so relax. And as she flicked through my passport (only one, brand new, and with a recent photo), she asked where would I be staying.

I had no idea. 'I have no idea.' And I could tell by the way she lowered the passport and stared at me that fairly shortly I might be gasping for breath. 'Wait. When I was in Jerusalem in 1975 I stayed in a monastery for a couple of nights, but this time I would like to stay in the new city, just near the Jaffa Gate perhaps.'

'You were in Israel in 1975?'

You hard of hearing or what? 'Yep, sure was. I was at Ginosar for a while and...'

'What! You were at Ginosar?'

Give me strength, you silly woman. 'Yes, for just over three months. I worked in bananas mostly.'

'Who did you know there?'

After I rattled off a few names, she gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. She stamped my passport, lowered her machine gun and said, 'Welcome to my home, Israel.'

The old city of Jerusalem is home to Christians, Jews and Muslims. Not saying they hold onto hands every day but still it's a start because religion surely cannot be about us vs them, or even those, it must be about us _and_ them. Or those. I was welcomed in all areas. It's a beautiful thing, after the Israeli security search you and I mean search you, to be in the Muslim Quarter next to the Dome of the Rock, taken by the hand and shown what Islam means; to meet a Jewish person heading to the Wailing Wall and be told about his beliefs; and to listen to a passionate Christian explain why the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is core. Deep faith doesn't necessarily have to mean conflict, but honour, purity and acceptance; all of the above being contrary to politics, the media and anyone drinking alcohol. I walked and I smelled and I listened and I osmosised. And dreamt of the day when this mob, not to mention the complexities of everywhere else, can say, 'Listen mate, I am me, tell me about you because we are all in this together.' **** I was kissed on the cheek by a Muslim (quite a few in fact - kisses and Muslims), hugged by many different breeds of Christians and even cared for by a Jewish family. ****

I went to Jerusalem during Easter because I wanted to believe but I was held back by fear because my thoughts on religion, and in particular Christianity, had been clouded by disgust, anger and a bad egg. Yet I know there is great beauty there. I think it's the control I object to, the insinuation that I am rubbish, the demeaning, the lies, and also I wanted Jesus to be not more perfect but more normal, like the rest of us. I mean, which divine being disappears for thirty odd years and doesn't send a scroll back to his mother? And then almost knowingly, gets himself strung up and we get the message, the down-payment on a perfect life, 'Dudes, you're all forgiven for what you do.' Really? We now have a valid excuse to avoid taking responsibility and to blame others for what is regarded as our sins. Vicarious redemption at its best. Or does it come back to choice? Our choice. To reconcile a sacrifice given for a promise of an entry.

# 26

'Tony, where did you go to the toilet? You know, I mean, where did you, you know...'

'Where did I do a number-two?'

'...Yes, that's what I meant.'

'Well, there's a composting toilet on the top of the outside bank on every bend.'

'Truly?'

You wonder sometimes. 'Yep, sure. They are made of hand-hewn six by two hardwood planks with a corrugated-iron roof. You walk up the steps (and can I say the interiors have an art deco feel), do your business into a sort of long drop thing, tip a cup of sawdust in and Bob's your uncle. Or aunty. No six litres of water needed. If you leave the door open the views are fantastic.'

'Do they, you know, smell a bit?'

'Nah, clean as a whistle, like sitting amongst rose petals. While the shop's open do you want to know how I pee during the day?'

'Eoeww, no. Alright, tell me.'

Never finished toilet training. 'Well, it's a nuisance to be stopping particularly after drinking so much coffee and river water, so I do it into the billy. Then paddle in real close to the shore, and chuck the contents up the bank. Once I missed you know, and tossed it against my leg.'

'That is so yuk. Hang on, you said into a billy. That wouldn't be the making-the-tea billy would it?'

'Yes, the uric acid cleans it out.' There's usually a pause about here while they consider if we've ever shared tea.

'Art deco you say, in the toilets?'

'Sure. Just below Menindee I saw wallpaper showing Parisian ladies in fur. You just never know what's inside.'

This person probably takes a newspaper in while he sits on the throne. How does that work? When I squat down there's not a great deal of time to be reading. Dig a hole on the top of the bank, touch, pause, hold, engage. Put the ball in and stop trying to milk a penalty. Man, if you're going to use the dunny, then do so. Reading is for more tranquil moments.

Now that I had a map in a plastic cliplock bag welded to the gunwales, I knew that Pooncarie was a few days away. The current thinking was to finish there, like the plan from last year. However, this time I hadn't hit the wall. To finish would be free choice, a decision made with maturity, understanding, and of course, a list.

Pooncarie list #2

1. Leave canoe and gear in Pooncarie

2. Lift with Geoff the mailman to Menindee for the ute

3. Drive back to Pooncarie and load up

4. Go home and pretend to be a writer

Even though the road from Pooncarie to Menindee was still cut for us mortals, Geoff knew of a bypass sort of thing, which was around four-thousand kilometres extra. Be a nice drive out in the back country. Yes, that was a great plan. Then go home, wash my gear and write a book.

But I hadn't allowed for Geoff's revised timetable because it was coming up to Easter. He went through a day earlier didn't he, and I missed him. It takes him two days to do the run, and so he didn't want to be driving back on Easter Friday. So the Pooncarie list was now invalid.

After I had tied up on the old wharf sign, I wandered up to the hotel. Yes there was a room, and then I wondered about getting my canoe up to the back of the hotel. Trevor at the Hotel said that Col, who lived on the river next to the old wharf, was a nice bloke and probably wouldn't mind me leaving my gear at his place. But I discovered that no-one was home and I couldn't just drag my stuff up on someone's front lawn without asking; that would be a bit presumptuous. And so I stayed at the Pooncarie Hotel for three days and just left the canoe and all my gear tied up at the old wharf site near where all the tourists parked their four-wheel drives. I wandered about town, talking to locals and grey nomads. Several of them said, 'Did you know someone has left a canoe there, tied up at the wharf? Full of gear too. Must be a trusting soul.'

I was having a beer in the hotel talking to some locals and a few ring-ins, and the topic was fish. Understandably so, being next to the Darling River. If you were on Mt Kosciusko it might be snow, or Mr Kosciusko, but we weren't on Mt Kosciusko we were close to the Darling River. So it was fish.

'Yes,' I offered, 'I've caught plenty of carp. But anyway, they're okay to eat.' I put my beer on the bar and looked into the distance, feeling chuffed at such a profound comment, and muttered, 'Hmmm, probably start learning Greek soon. I can speak Latin. How about this; _Carpe deadum._ It means seize the fish and eat it.'

The entire population of The Telegraph Hotel, Pooncarie, turned and stared at me. 'You what?' they said collectively. Don't think they were referring to my expert language capabilities. Trevor the publican said that he had been at the hotel for three hundred years, and no-one had ever said they eat carp.

One morning I saw Col in his front yard. I said 'Hi, I was told you were a nice fellow and that you would still talk to me even though I eat carp.'

'Really? You were told that? Want to come in for a beer?'

I must remember that line. As it was only eleven a.m., I felt it a little early to have a beer, but I relented. One has to be polite. 'Yes, that would be fine, thank you.' I might be easy, but I'm not cheap. We talked about growing oranges and fish and gum trees.

I said, 'I don't camp within fifty kilometres of a gum tree, they tend to drop big branches.'

Col told me that when he was working in the citrus orchard, each afternoon he would sit in the back of his tied-up boat and fish. He could get his line out past the roots and such, and it was comfortable. One afternoon he walked down to find a massive branch smashed across his chair.

Later that day Col and his wife Yvonne were at the hotel and Col said, 'Hey, want to have dinner with us?'

'Yes thanks Col, that would be great. I'll meet you in there. I just need to go and make myself gorgeous.' He looked at me, and said slowly, 'Hmmm, that might take a while.'

# 27

Easter this year not only came with its four-day break from the everyday - that's if anyone would really want a break from commuting twice a day, coming home wondering where your life was heading, and then not sleeping properly; that's if anyone would not want to wake to an alarm that shattered what life-altering or reinforcing dreams you might have been having; that's if anyone would not want to push their mind and body so much that when a break came, for example, an Easter holiday, you would get a headcold, the flu and a severe case of lumpy jaw. Because we are all like kangaroos, full of parasites, and while these are amenable during a good season, just you wait till things are overstretched and there's over-crowding, poor drainage or a shortage of chocolates.

It was also the Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland school holidays (which included the ANZAC Day holiday on Easter Monday) and as I made my way downriver after Pooncarie (because I know better than to finish a trip halfway) during this Easter break, the thousands of campers had plenty of opportunities to use a chainsaw, motorbike and motorboat, usually at the same time. Some campers don't really camp; they just tie their suburban homes on the back of a truck and relocate. It was tent-to-tent tents, and while this was a wonderful thing seeing people enjoying Australia's natural beauty, and maybe even a new generation out in the bush because I think lighting little fires and camping are two of the rites of passage for our youth (along with underage drinking, not doing homework and telling lies) it was bloody noisy and I secretly hoped that the fish they caught were all carp and they would all leave by morning, disappointed, craving their comforts.

'Told you there were no fish. You brought me out for what? To cook sausages and wash up-again?' Some blokes grizzle too much.

If the Considerations for Choosing a Campsite were complicated before, Easter brought a new way of thinking which involved not only a reduced selection of available camping areas and their noisy problems, but also lessons in how to ride waves in a canoe.

When I would hear a boat coming I had to be sharp because their bow waves could tip me over. I had to turn the canoe in to face these waves. Some were a metre high, and I had quite a few scary moments. Nearly all boats cut their motors back and slowed right down. The worst was when three huge silver boats came roaring up the river. These boats were so big you could toddle across to New Zealand for the weekend in them. (Not that you'd want to do that, you might be told that you are really a New Zealander and therefore could not be claimed as an Australian.) **** I heard these boats coming when they were about a week away. When they appeared as little silver dots, I could see that they were really close to one another, and as they roared closer I saw in their back sections they had yabby pots, eskies full of Victoria Bitter, and four-wheel drives tied down. When I waved for them to slow down, like a policeman does when he wants you to slow down, or even stop, because you are in trouble, these guys thought I was just being friendly. They waved back. 'Hey Bill, that bloke in the red canoe is friendly. You see him wave like that?' And they kept roaring past. All three. The waves that came at me were around four metres high and they blocked the sun. Thinking of going to Portugal with a surfboard. I was terrified, and said unkind words like how I hoped they didn't see that log just under the surface a couple of bends away. That would be a shame. Then, ten minutes later, the bastards came back. They obviously missed the log I put there. 'Hey Bill look, he's still friendly.'

Maybe lightning would get them.

Word was, the fishing inspector would be out at Easter inspecting people who are fishing. That is what they do, fishing inspectors. One morning I was packing the canoe, and I heard a boat powering along. This was not strange, it being Easter. It would be strange if there were no boat sounds. One bloke was in a tinnie, going flat strap up the river, with his right arm bent back holding onto the steering thing. On his coat shoulder he had an insignia, one that said 'I am the Fishing Inspector and I Know Who's Been Naughty or Nice.' I could read small insignias, but only when they were doing sixty km/h. He perhaps didn't see me as I was sort of on a corner behind a large fallen branch. But I was ready; I had a licence, my name tag on the shrimp trap and only two lines set up. He didn't stop and it was somehow disappointing. You want an authority person pulling you over when you're doing the right thing. If you're stealing apricots then you wouldn't want them saying, 'Righto, Get off of the pushbike and put your hands - no, leave the fruit - above your head.' You'd only want to be picked up digging in the vegetable garden or something. 'So, is that your vegetable garden then? You'd better come down to the station while we check it out. Been some people taking undersized brussel sprouts lately. No name tag on that shovel, either. Hmmm, you could be at the station for a while, better let your mum know.'

It was a great season for yabbies, and there were hundreds of Opera House pots in. These pots, and that is a weird name because they're not pots, they're mesh sort of things, (it would be pretty hard listening to opera in there and it would be really wet too), were mostly set in the flooded gum sections and they had floating things tied on so they could be found and also for identification. And I met a yabbie catcher, a real one. Nearing the end of the Easter break, **** the one where Mildura moved all its dwellings to the Darling, I heard another tinnie coming up behind me. Here we go, another wave to ride, but this motor cut back, and then stopped.

'Hey, saw you going past way back there, so I went in and got you a coldie. Here. My name's Tom Statham, how are you doing?'

This boy had me worked out. A cold beer, offered with a genuineness and kindness that I am finding is not rare at all, makes me believe in the world. A simple view I know, but one that keeps me going in times of darkness. Even in the daylight hours.

'Thank you.'

He was with his wife, Meredith, and we all hung onto each other's boat as we drifted down the river, drinking coldies and talking about stuff. This man was a saint because all that he felt about the river was beautiful.

'Man there are so many crayfish around. Did you know the daily limit is two hundred for each person?'

I did know this and it is a dodgy rule. Okay, it's a good season, but restraint is called for here. And a new rule maybe.

He said, 'After we get a feed, we pull our traps out. All the others don't. I mean, how many yabbies can you eat?'

So happens, I can't eat many yabbies at all, or any crustaceans for that matter. I have a minor reaction currently known as death; but he is right. And I have this problem with the blokes, and it's always blokes, because girls don't go camping and fishing. Did I just say that? Sorry Grandma, you were a great fisherwoman. Blokes who come out to the Darling and engage in hauling out as many yabbies or fish as they can has a militarily feel to it. They use pots, crosslines, nets, droppers set on snags, and around two hundred set lines strewn for three kilometres along the bank. They have boats and use explosives as well. There are bag limits, and even how many fish you're allowed to have, not to mention the number and type of lines. That number is two; one, two. And set them close by. And the rules state that you can't even have more lines in your tackle bag ready to use.

After we had drifted for fifty kilometres, Tom asked where I would be camping. I said, 'Well, probably about two bends past that red bank.' We said our goodbyes and I went on and set up camp. I saw the red azolla trapped out in an overflow lake near an old homestead, which was ruined and broken. These old homesteads, they hold their memories, and if you're really slow and respectful when you walk around the fallen timber and stone fireplaces, you can hear little kids playing games, and see a couple sitting at a slab table. She has on a long white dress, her hair pulled up with a wispy bit curled down her neck, and he has a suit of sorts, a white shirt and a thin black tie. They always looked overdressed and hot, these earlier farmers. Think they'd wear footy shorts or cooler drawstring longuns occasionally. Or perhaps learn off the original people or the Afghans.

Just before dusk, amongst the barrage of loud voices, revving motors, traffic lights, guns and dogs, a boat pulled in. It was Tom.

'Brought you some nibblies. And another couple of cold beers.'

He and Meredith had put together some cheese, coldmeats, olives and crackers. We sat and talked. Tom said, 'I love this old river and I love what you're doing, can you let me know when your book gets published because I want to buy it? And I will tell everyone I know to buy it too. I'm a truckie and I travel all round this terrific country.'

I felt really proud, honoured even, that he would say this and a little guilty that I had somehow said too much about my writing plans because I might fail. Mind you, failing and I have a close relationship but there are times when I feel I should shut-up, which is usually a difficult ask. So here I am telling people I am going to be a writer and knock up a story about an old river. Sure, and make a living off it as well. Yeah, right. I felt awful, but more than that, I felt like I had been bragging. Nothing wrong with bragging, I try to do it after I have done something. Then it's okay to sort of exaggerate a bit. If you exaggerate before then it's a lie. And I don't tell those sort of lies. It was a frustration at myself, not Tom.

I wanted to be a writer, I've always wanted to be a writer, nothing else. Ever. Well, maybe travel the world and have a family but writing was a compulsion, and I had to do it, or go away and curl up under a gum tree and die. As well as being a dreamer, and living a life of fantasy, there are occasions when reality kicks in. I've only had a couple of these periods of reality, thank goodness, because while abstract fantasy is my preferred way of approaching the day-to-day, reality causes me pain. And today was one of these coming back to what-is-real days, and I felt myself edging toward the depths, like water going down a plughole (this is the Southern Hemisphere so it would be a clockwise gurgle.) Got to get that out of the way. Coping with reality is like me and mathematics; a tolerable friendship. I could hear my insecurities blowing in with a westerly wind. What was I supposed to do? Say, 'Jeez Tom,' and about three hundred thousand others I have bragged to, 'No, I'm just drifting here doing nothing in particular, you know, no aspirations in life. What, me write about it? Ha, don't you be silly now. I'm sure retirement without goals, or money, is the way to go.' But it was a low self-belief and a need for acceptance from others that was getting in the way of reality marrying fantasy.

After a couple of years of flogging myself with a stick from an old peppercorn tree, growing near that old house, I got my spark back. This could be dangerous in dry conditions, but it had been a wet year, so it was okay. I grabbed life by the throat, not a particularly nice analogy but there you have it, and I squeezed, real hard. Much harder than seeing if a lizard had died. I regained my irreverence and I fired on all cylinders. I settled myself through a justification of truth, my truth, my dreams of how I wanted to live. I still may need acceptance from others, but the self-belief was gaining. I asked myself another What If question. What if I met some lone paddler on a river somewhere, or a bushwalker setting up camp on a remote mountain, and he or she said to me, 'I want to be a writer.' And they had this dream to have a book published on what they do. I know what I would say; I would say, 'Wow, good on you. And you've given up your day job to do this? You must be crazy, but oh Lord, what a good sort of crazy person you must be.' And because I, or even we now, have chosen this path, or river, failure is an option. When I got home I printed all that I had written so far, and I sent it to Tom. I said, Man, thank you so much for believing in me. You helped me believe in myself.

Not all the Easter campers were practising for the Dakar Rally or clear felling the forest. Some, like Tom and Meredith, had an aura of quiet you could feel and see. And it is this glow, this emotion, that can take away all your worries, your stresses and bring you to a place of love. And it seems when you're in such a place, the universe says, 'Hey, let's make good things happen for this bloke. Let us let him be open to listen, to acknowledge and maybe even to accept what is different. Let us let him learn how to let go.'

# 28

Down near the pointy end of the trip, I was feeling worn out. I met a station owner who asked me how far had I had come this day. When I told where I had started the day, he said, 'Wo,' That's way over fifty kilometres.'

So by the time I paddled quite a few more bends past all his station houses, grape vines and horses, it was well after sunset, and I was even more wored out. I started to panic and wonder whether I'd be sleeping standing up like one of the horses I had just seen. Whenever I feel this panic-anxiety it tends to make me anxiete about it more so then it becomes a circle of worriness. It's like pouring water in a gauze sieve that's got all its holes blocked; it overflows and doesn't go through like it supposed to do. The worry overflows so that your mind collects it and starts all over again. An anxiety of sieves. So I tried to change the worries in my inner mind. I said to myself, 'No, I'm not serving any worries that will be recycled in a returned sieve.' And so I let it go. I let go in the sense that I had done all I could and so let the cards fall where they may, because I could deal with it. They will get better, I promise. About two minutes before dark I saw a little patch of dirt, approximately three square inches in area. I ticked off the Considerations for Choosing a Campsite list. Yes, I had enough daylight if I got a wriggle on, it was dry, it had an inlet, no snakes (keep reading on a bit), no ants, and no tents owned by other people. But there was one more consideration I hadn't counted on. Next time I come down this river, and there will be a next time, I'm not going to camp. I will paddle all the way without sleeping. Maybe even do it all in the one day. And feel really tough like the others who gave me such fortuitous advice just before weir 32 last year.

As I started to unload gear, I heard a car door slam. Please don't do this to me. But I remembered the sieve thing and how I handed my worries over to the universe. So I did an amazing thing; I ignored it. Just pretended that I hadn't heard it and what it may mean, like a house just over there for example. It was when I heard the second car door slam, that I thought, 'Right, I'd better see what's going on before I settle in.' As I walked around little shrubby things I heard voices from just over there, and as I looked I saw two blokes walking towards me. They had shotguns and they were wearing army-type camouflage gear. And strapped diagonally over their vests they had full cartridge belts. Like in the movies. They had short hair and big beards, and knives and things. I could see the headlines: 'Police can't understand what happened to the lone canoe person who vanished last week. A banjo was found beside his abandoned canoe. Police are appealing to backwoods people for help.'

'Hello over there. Yoohoo, I'm just here.' Of course they didn't hear me, why would I think that. So, after twelve more times of calling out they both looked up. 'Hey, where did you come from?'

'Well, my mother and father loved each other very much and... ' I mentioned how I was merely ticking off the Considerations for Choosing a Campsite List and No, you weren't on that list but now you are, and how about that.

The tall bloke looked at his shorter mate and said, 'What did he just say?'

These blokes had their guns broken, and pointed downwards. They assured me I was completely safe camping there because they were shooting in the billabong away over there and anyway, there was a much better camp site just around that corner. And when I get down closer towards Wentworth, would I like to call in to their place and stay? You know, have a cold beer and a hot shower perhaps?

At my new-improved camp site, courtesy of the two shotgun blokes, which is really the name of an A Capella group, I began thinking about finishing at Palinyewah, like I did last year. Do the usual leave the canoe on the front lawn, get a lift into town and drive out and get it later. As I was working all this out, the Darling decided that I needed one more safety lesson. With thirty seconds to spare before dark I had finished setting up camp and I was sipping black sweet tea. It was that time when it's dark but not really total black dark. You see shapes but not detail. I thought I'd wander back to the fire to stare at the flames and go into trance and think about when I could do my next Darling River trip; the one without sleeping. Watching small fires is the most fun you can have with your clothes on and without spending any money. It was six steps to the fire and What, I don't need my head torch on. Come on, it's only a little way. Then little warning lights came on like they used to on the instrument panel of my 1954 Dodge truck. (They did this with some regularity. These lights were fairly small and they glowed red, and if you saw them, you took notice.) I turned my head torch on and of course right in front of me where I would have stepped was a six foot brown snake. And I did something stranger than driving a seventeen-hundred kilometre round trip to see my parents' graves; I reached down and picked it up. Not sure why I did that - the snake thing, because I had promised myself, under oath, that I would not ever pick up snakes again. It clearly meant promises to myself could either be followed for a little while, open for negotiation, or totally disregarded, sort of like traffic speed signs or politician's promises. The snake was placid enough. Probably just wanted to stare into a little campfire and write a list.

Getting towards Wentworth, the ante was upped for Consideration for Camping because there were more houses. I started to think what it might be like curled up in the canoe. No fires though. But I remembered the Letting Go Principle, and the Go Slow Rule. When you go slow, particularly when you are feeling a bit pushed, you get more done, it's done properly, it's safer, and at the end you feel good about yourself. I should do that more often. And as the cloak of darkness drifted down, (you had to watch out you didn't get your ears caught in the button holes), I came past a station up on an orange bank. At that precise moment a fellow walked down to check his pump. So we talked, and Brian, who was checking his pump, said, 'Yeah, just camp along there where the fence comes down.' Just after I had set up camp, he arrived on his trail bike, with a kelpie sitting on the petrol tank, to see if I was okay. It's a good thing that kelpies don't smoke anymore.

# 29

I tied up at Palinyewah and walked along the road, looking closely at where I was stepping, and even though it was around midday, I had the head torch on. I walked past the house on whose lawn I had left the canoe last year. The first car that drove past belonged to the fellow who owned the house on whose lawn I had left the canoe last year.

He said, 'Good morning traveller. Hey, you're the bloke that came down the river last year and left his canoe on my front lawn for three days.'

'Yes, it is I. Can I please leave my canoe on your lawn again?'

And just like leaving the canoe here last year, or leaving it tied up at the old wharf site at Pooncarie, no-one is going to take it. Ever. He said, 'Yes, of course you can leave your canoe there.' And he was like, Why did you even ask me?

After paddling for seven hours in order to meet Geoff the mailman, I discovered that I had missed him by fifteen minutes. I seem to miss him often. Nice bloke, Geoff. Plan b) was now activated, and this was to stay the weekend in Wentworth and come out with Geoff on Monday. **** Fiona, the Teacher's Aide, said she could drive me into Wentworth.

Coming back to civilisation has its disappointments. In order to maintain a level of social accord, one must follow rules, and even perhaps do things that one disagrees with. You have to change clothes more often than you might out there, there are digital buttons and their insane instructions to confuse you, harsh noises to scrape off your ears and manners to relearn. Moreover, after sleeping on the ground, a soft bed is not easy to manage. However, civilisation can also have benefits because domestic hot water is mankind's greatest achievement. Never mind the moon thing in 1969, computers or sealed roads, you hop under some really hot water and your past is forgotten, your present sublime and your future - well, if you're dwelling on that then get out and save the hot water for someone else.

I stayed at the Wentworth Central Motor Inn, a motel run by the lovely Andy and Emon. 'Hey Tony, welcome back home. Nice to see you again.'

Here they give you real milk to have in your tea. That is worth driving to Wentworth for, just to get that wee jug of milk, there in the back of the fridge. The next day, after she had serviced the rooms, Emon said, 'Hey, why didn't you sleep in the bed?'

'Sure I did. I just chose to remake it like you do.'

Emon knew, as does everyone who faces up to reality, that no-one can remake a bed like a motel person, or a nurse. They tuck the sheets in so tightly that the earth's rotation is slowed and the magnetic field gets reversed. They also use a staple-gun to make sure you can't budge the suckers. Even if you think about pulling the sheets out you will throw your back out.

The Barmaid with the Eastern European accent was sticking posters on the wall.

She said, 'There's a free music afternoon at the ArtBack Studio tomorrow. Do you know where it is?'

No, I did not. Could she please draw me a mud map, hook me up to Google Earth or drive me there? She pointed to an old brick building at the end of the street.

The Artback Gallery and Café, run by Steve and Anne Hederics, is in the river navigation building built in 1882, and is now a perfect mix of the old and new. The red brick and dark timber matches the iron and the silver kitchen and the atmosphere is one that draws from our colonial past and to blend into a modern world of compassion and inclusivity. Nice coffee too.

On the Monday, Geoff the mailman drove me back to Menindee, pausing briefly at a front lawn in Palinyewah to throw the canoe on. He's quick. As the roads were still cut past Pooncarie, we made that short two-hundred and fifty kilometre detour (did I exaggerate before?) with me as the official opener of gates. Why he went this way; I'm sure of it. Could have driven through a bit of mud. Some latches must have been installed by a bloke with very long rubber arms, gravity hadn't been taken into consideration for most corner posts and quite a few farmers would have benefited from the loan, and subsequent use, of a spirit level. Every gate had two names, each painted on a bit of tin and wired on opposite sides; for example, there would be West Paddock 1 and East Paddock 2. Very simple, very ingenious.

'Hey Bill, it's me. Can you come and help me? Been bitten by a brown snake.'

'Sure, where are you?'

'I'm at North 2.'

And Bill would come to you, precisely. (That's if you were close to said gate)

As a result of my barked shins, missing fingers, and naughty words, there is to be a new rule for country New South Wales; no gates will be allowed ever again. It's to be grids only and their construction costs to be claimable on all medical benefit schemes, student loans and the old-age pension. A new tertiary degree will be compulsory for anyone even considering working the land.

'Hey Joe, what are you going to do when you grow up?'

'Oh, think I'll grow cabbages.'

'Right, don't forget that new unit in How Not To Have Gates. Apparently it's a tough one.'

A pass rate will be set at a ninety-nine percent. Anyone not reaching this modest benchmark will be required to do one hundred hours of community work, namely, opening gates for a mailman, until greater application to studies is evident. They would then be off the grid.

# 30

Menindee to Wentworth via Broken Hill on the sealed road is only a few hours, most of which I spent dodging kangaroos, emus and dragonflies. I had contacted my old friend Dot from Menindee in the seventies. Dot's not seventy, we met in the seventies; Dot's eighty-five. We have been writing letters since the seventies, non-stop; scrap paper being readily available.

I said, 'Hey Dot, I'll be in the neighbourhood (well three hours from Berri in South Australia where she lived), love to see you, what about if I come out?'

'Yes Tony, that would be great.'

But when I got into Wentworth it was late afternoon and I felt weary from driving around leaping marsupials, large flightless birds and fix-winged aeroplanes. And going to Berri would be driving into the sun, which would be pretty hot, and there'd be semi-trailers buzzing around, and even though they drive straighter than a dragonfly, it all seemed too hard. Probably be gates to open. So I phoned Dot. 'Be okay if I come out tomorrow?'

She said, 'Sure, meet you at the Big Orange, and we'll come back and have lunch. Be lovely to see you Tony after all these years.'

But when I settled into the motel room, I was thinking of just driving home in the morning and not going out to see Dot. Sometimes you feel slack but you know (and even possibly secretly hope) that your conscience is there behind the fence just whistling and taking it easy because he knows that you know he's there, and he can wait. 'Okay Tony, so you don't want to drive out there, is that it? That's right, you don't want to make the effort for friendship, you'll just pass on by and wait another thirty-five years. How old did you say Dot was? No, it's fine, you just drive on back to Brisbane and while you're at it, don't you call on John, your old neighbour from Brisbane, who runs the Robinvale Hotel, or your brother Terry, and your best mate Peter, both in Dubbo. No, it's alright.'

Throughout this Murray-Darling region, there are numerous fruit checkpoints. Can't understand why they don't want us Queenslanders to share our fruit flies. We share our water. Sometimes. Some checkpoints just have huge bins with signs saying 'Dump all your fruit in here but please do not dump any family members. Do that elsewhere and in your own time, we have enough bodies in South Australia'. I saw an 'Eat It Now Or Else', but the best sign ever was 'Stop this banana with your hands.' I swear by the old gods and the new it was a sign.

On the way to Berri to see Dot, Checkpoint man wore a crisp uniform, and he looked very serious. This is probably another of those times. Like at airports and customs when I have to act sensibly and thank goodness there's not many of these.

'Gidday Champ. Got any fruit?'

Been a while since I was called that. Now the passenger seat was piled with junk; clothes, three ports, two paddles, four thermoses, beans, carrots, a daypack and two water bottles. In the back of the ute there were four very large tin trunks, three plastic storage boxes, three 60L drums and a canoe. Sounds like a Christmas song. I could have had the orchard output of four countries with me. 'No, I have no fruit. I ate it all back there at the sign that says, "This is where you must stop and start to get the shits."'

He looked around for three seconds, frowned and said, 'Open your glovebox.'

So that's where I hide my Queensland fruit flies? I did so, and three maps, two catfish and a swimwear magazine clattered onto the floor. Or where the floor would have been except it was covered in stuff. 'Okay Champ, you're clean, away you go.'

Your tax dollars at work. What does he do when a road train pulls up? 'Okay Chief, unload everything please.' No wonder South Australia gets no food, water or tourists. When I came down the Anabranch in the seventies, I got a ride into Wentworth with a couple of locals. We stopped at a checkpoint and the man asked his question. Whytey, who was in the front, leaned out the window and sang, 'We got bananas, we got passionfruits...'

**'** Get out of here, you turkeys.'

Just past the checkpoint there was a billboard that said _Stop Creeping_. Now I'm all for this; there's just too many people out there scaring little kids. I like South Australia; it's a bit out there, but nice.

When Dot and I had lunch, well it was wonderful. We talked about old times on the river, kids, grandkids, and everything in between, and when I left she hugged me and said, 'Tony, thank you so much for coming out.'

I had mentioned to a couple of hundred people and a few emus from around Broken Hill, that I was thinking of calling in to the Robinvale Hotel managed by my old neighbour John. Most of these people and several of the emus said, 'What, you're kidding? That is one rough pub. They hose the bar floor every night after closing, which might be well into daylight next day, to wash out the body parts.'

It was after dark when I drove down the main street of Robinvale. I put the ute into a low gear, and leaned over the steering wheel, ready for a quick getaway. (Why would you make a slow getaway?) I was expecting to see a gunfight. 'Put your hands up, real slow like.' I've heard them say that on the telly. What if you jerked your arms down towards your guns, 'Ha just trickin'.'

Bang.

In the Robinvale Hotel, the open fire was cosy, there was a family birthday party, eight local farmers, twelve Irish backpackers around for the fruit picking and a handful of regulars in the front bar watching the greyhounds on the telly. I've had tougher nights at the library fighting pensioners over a newspaper. John and his wife Jane run a nice hotel. It took me a week to eat the Wagyu steak, vegies and chips, and after settling in, a slightly embarrassing thing happened to me.

In the front bar of the Robinvale Hotel there were twelve thousand televisions, all going at the same time and all on different channels. This amount of visual stimulation turns my brain into mashed potato. I'd rather think about gravity or mathematics. One had video hits and was showing some old footage of Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris. **** When the clip stopped I mentioned to John that it was a shame that the channel fizzled out and anyway, why didn't he pay his bills so us patrons would be looked after? 'Tony,' he said, 'Welcome to town, and to the next century. That over there is a jukebox, but there's no arm that reaches over and selects a little record. She's all digital mate.' I have a recollection of me standing in front of this jukebox with some coins trying to work out how on earth it operated. After about an hour and a half, John came over and said, 'Tony, didn't know you smoked? Come over here to the jukebox and I'll help you select the songs.'

Didn't have my glasses on, that's all.

In London in 1974 I was in a pub, which is where I spent all my time in 1974. And most of 1975. This being The White Hart, more to do with legs than tickers, and I was leaning on a jukebox, bopping around and knocking down a pint of lukewarm beer. Not my first pint, you understand. In London all they served was warm beer - they don't have refrigeration over there. (Why would you need it living in London anyway. Just toss your lamb chops onto the front lawn - if you could afford it. Chops too.) Now Max Merritt and his Meteors were setting up their drum kits, cords, and guitars, and Max came down off the stage and started a conversation with me.

'Hey there, Aussie.'

I'd taken off the sign from around my neck for the night and just had the tattoo on my forehead. We chatted for a while and I made sure that my mates could see me. Yeah, that's right, I'm just talking with Max, you know, we're old friends, probably remembers me from when he came through Dubbo. Then Max said, not quite as softly as I would have preferred, 'Can you move away from the jukebox so I can turn it off?'

I crawled back to the table.

'So Tony,' my mates said, 'How's Max?'

# Epilogue

Back home in Brisbane I got up at four a.m., put the coffee on, fed the chooks, and pretended I was a writer. I felt real, sharply alive and more than a bit vindicated. By me to myself. This was living the dream and it was my version of heaven. I paid the house loan out so I could remortgage if I needed to purchase from a museum gift shop, or open a bar fridge (just to look inside mind). I had enough money for two more years and then I just didn't care. Financially, I am out of lists. Money was not important. I don't believe I just said that.

My retirement plan was to write about the 2010 and 2011 trips and incorporate aspects of the 1970s drifting down the Darling trip where applicable. I discovered that this did not work because the seventies, apart from occurring on another planet, did not match me now. Not even close. The fishing and birds were similar enough but what happened then on a personal level was too remote. Not as in irrelevant, quite the opposite; it was what made me. So the book I now wanted to write was just the river trip that started in 1976.

Sitting writing was not conducive to physical fitness. I knew that. So I had a plan. Each Saturday I walked up to a bookmaker and placed a bet of Wentworth proportions (also wore running shoes), had a cold beer then walked back home. Round trip, about three kilometres, and taking a little over two hours. That should toughen me up. Then I grabbed the pushbike and did a ten minute workout that was so intense I needed to lay prone for half an hour to recover. France is safe for a bit. Then I hit the weight machine (usually with a broom to remove the spiders). I could lift fifteen kilograms (with both arms), twice, without stopping. I looked in the mirror and thought, right, I might stick with paddling a canoe. Properly of course.

The old river still called and it seemed that it was when, not if, I would go again. And surely, it must mean that I would have to return to the Darling because writers must research their subject, right?
PART 3

# 2012

# 31

Since returning to Brisbane last year, as well as making a reasonable effort to be a writer, I rediscovered the joys of consumerism. I revelled in the unbridled pleasure of access to a wide range of material possessions. Basically, I got lost in the aisles of a hardware store for three weeks. The police phoned my wife. 'We have a male person here who says you might know him. Is your hubby missing by any chance?'

Whenever I go out bush by myself, I leave a note with the relevant police station saying what I'll be doing, where I'll be doing it and when I expected to finish it. I know they appreciated this because they have told me so. A couple of years ago I did a walk in the southern highlands of New South Wales and in this particular October I had to contend with three blizzards. The first one saw me arrive one day late at a booked trailhead and the lovely person in charge had phoned the police who phoned the rangers who said, 'Nope, we think he's okay, because we have met him and we have seen his sealed tube diary entries along the track, so relax.' The police - and I love the police so much I advocate for a double pay rise for their services - were perhaps a tad zealous and contacted the Brisbane police who made a house call, and said to my wife, 'Your husband is missing in a blizzard. Please fill in this missing persons form, we think he's gone.' Blizzards #2 and #3 have been erased from my memory. And possibly my wife's.

When I arrived in Menindee in August of 2012, the Darling River was closed. This was a new concept for me. A closed river; how does that work? Large signs? A big fence like the one along the northern border of New South Wales that keeps undesirables out of Queensland? (Other nations have copied this concept.) The police said, 'Yes the river is out of bounds for all motorised watercraft.' It was said that this was an environmental concern, as in, the wake from speeding boats would upset the delicate banks and might cause severe erosion.

I was good with this and said nothing, because I was allowed to proceed. I like cops. Seriously. Triple pay rise.

And why was I out on the Darling again?

I was there because acceptance is better if it comes, not from compliance after being flattened, gently coerced or demeaningly bullied (although that does work occasionally) but from within. As in, 'This is my decision as a complement to the growth of my self acceptance.' Or, failing that, 'I choose to lose gracefully.' There have been times when I accepted things not on my list, but have usually ignored the graceful losing bit because mostly it has been undertaken with a lot of noise. I went back to the Darling not because I needed to research anything (I had enough journals, photos and memories to last for three forevers) but I breathe because of the old river. When I'm about to leave the Darling I take a big breath and it sees me through until the next time. I love my family very much and would die for them (well, perhaps share my home-made biscuits) but they understand that if I can have solitude in a special place it actually makes things better at home. Some people don't need to travel to feel this specialness, some may. Do you have one? India, the middle east, the back vegie garden....?

This year, 2012, I paddled from Menindee to Wentworth - standing up like I said I would. It was hard, not the standing upright and going without sleep for five weeks, but handling a billy full of boiling water in a canoe was tricky. I recognised every tree, every bend, and even saw the same couple I had seen in 2010, fishing at the exact same spot. Don't these people have anywhere else to go? And even though Menindee Lakes were releasing 7,000 megalitres a day, the river was down from last year. This meant sandy beaches and it meant I might find my dad's fishing rod.

And from this search and finding a seemingly trivial thing I was given a reminder of a greater loss. It was a lesson in humility. The trivial thing was the butt of my dad's fishing rod and it was symbolic of a person greater than I will ever be; a more magnificent humble man who gave me all, one who has been a light (occasionally turned off to save money), and one who did his best to let me accept myself.

And I came to the river with openness. There was no predisposing, no agenda of lonely or unlonely. I thought I'd try to practise the letting go principle and enjoy things as they would be, rather than trying to change them into something else. Who knows what might happen?

# 32

The universe gives birds special jobs. Not just their usual fighting, building nests and the raising of chicks, and certainly nothing as dubious as supporting a bank, a church or a corporation, but special employment that raises them above (I can't keep doing this) their pecking order (or can I?) and into the realms of being a mentor to wider society, regardless of its consistent ability to allow itself to be ripped off, its strong inherent inclination to be demeaned on a weekly basis, or the acceptance that a minority of figurehead's take-home pay will rise above (sorry) the pay scale of most of the planet's population. Put together.

These positions need no touched-up portraits, no resumes to write or no lies to tell in sham interviews. As soon as a bird realises its vocation, it's on for young and old. And birds know the effect their special job has on issues such as domestic harmony, the world's military, and the arts.

Peaceful doves lull babies to sleep and therefore provide an immense support network for new mums and dads. Quails teach the military how to move quietly, and when owls fly on silent wings, superpower air forces watch closely. While butcher-birds and pittas without even trying, can whip together an arts council itinerary that includes classical and hop-hop.

There is one species that has the important job of trying to kill idiots. I know this for a fact because I was on the receiving end. I was the crash test dummy, the sucker, the volunteer who was chosen because the others had stepped backward. This bird is the darter, also called the snake bird because of its neck. With dry wings, darters fly well, but if disturbed after being in the water it's not a pretty sight, nor a 0-100 kph in 2.5 seconds. They flap, flop and scramble. It is embarrassing to watch. Darters don't have a duck's buoyancy (ducks are covered tightly in plastic wrap, everyone knows this) and therefore have to hang themselves out to dry like cormorants. But the universe has said to these darters, 'You are rubbish at a quick getaway but we will give you a needle with which to deter imbeciles.'

Darcy the darter (not his real name) was asleep on the bank, his head turned back and tucked inside its wing, just after I had seen two feral cats slinking along. And because I had no rifle with which to swap birdwatching stories with the cats, I thought I would sneak up, grab the sleeping bird and save his life. After demonstrating such amazing stealth that I have since been contacted by several spy agencies (ASIO, the CIA and the MIA) a couple of Parisian scammers at the Sacre-Coeur, and Charles Dickens' pickpockets, I held on to this beautiful bird. But I forgot about the neck. Nothing worse than forgetting about a darter's neck. Not even forgetting your teenager's birthday. Its neck (a darter's - settle) has a kink, even when stretched. And this is effective for participating in beach volleyball, striking at fish and at idiots. Their bill is long, yellow and strong and it's on the end of that neck. And the two bits of the bill come to a point more deadly than a thousand needles. Their speed is incredible. He struck. I yelped. No wonder our inland waterways are being denuded. These bastards are deadly. I dropped him in the dust and he scrambled down the bank in a sort of waddle and I must admit I wished he would trip and tumble in the dirt and maybe hit a log. Or two.

'Tony, what is that line of stab marks on your neck?'

'Oh it's just a little scratch I got at the sawmill when I slipped and fell onto the 90 mph blade. Anyway, I'm alright now, thanks for asking.'

As well as the Darling letting me draw breath, birds are also how I breathe; I don't have a diaphragm. Each bird I see equals one breath. Some days are pretty hectic I tell you. For example, a flock of budgerigars is worth a month (including jogging, walking up stairs or watching a late-night movie), four red-tailed black cockatoos give me a weekend and a pair of galahs means I can hold my breath for about a day.

'Pritchard has won the international free diving competition - again. Let's go and interview him. "Excuse me sir, you've been underwater for a week without coming up for air. What is your secret?"'

'Well, last Monday I saw a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos. Or were they corellas? Maybe it was Tuesday...?'

'Right. We'll go to an ad break then back to you at the station, Louise.'

It's not about the lists, the recording of who, where or how many, it's the abstract observations that make it exciting. If the white-plumed honeyeaters didn't call first at dawn (poetic licence, relax) what would happen? For starters, we would have confused kookaburras. 'Hang on Kerry, we can't laugh yet.' The nocturnals would probably kick in again because they wouldn't be sure when they should be in bed because as well as light being their dark, they listen for pointers. Great egrets, their necks approximately three metres long, hover over the water, picking up little fish. They scorn the intermediates and the smalls, and brag, 'Huh, you can't do that because mine's longer than yours.' Cormorants stand upright like statues on Easter Island (why would you denude your landscape so that it is unproductive, then have nothing left? How crazy is that. Australians would never do that. We'd sell it first.) before they take off, honking in indignancy, and then six hundred feet patter the water. That's if there were three-hundred of them. Cormorants dive over in a forward roll that is way more graceful than a duck doing a duck dive. Whistling kites land and ruffle. When crested pigeons and kookaburras land their tail goes erect. Ringnecks call the same as rosellas and in silhouette you can't tell the difference and that's because they are rosellas. Just because they are all green means nothing. Fairy martins drink as they fly. Their bottom beak becomes a scoop. Here is precision, here is danger. They go too deep they flip over.

'Police were called to the lower Darling last week to investigate an accident. They suspect drink-flying was the cause.' In the Menindee Hospital there is a ward for martins with dented beaks. The injured birds have spokes-martins.

# 33

Before, during and after each Darling trip, I always get asked about the ute. No-one ever asks, 'Tony, did you get lonely out there? How did you survive the wild animals?' Or, 'Will you marry me?' All they want to know about is the ute. 'Where do you leave it?' they wanted to know. 'How do you get back to it?' And how did I get my canoe and gear to and from the river, and every now and again, 'Where is your back-up team?'

In 1976 I was driven to the start by two wonderful Dubbo lads, Paul Ivers and Peter Porch. And therefore I was then on my own until I reached the Murray some eighteen months later. No ute to go back to and no back-up.

1978. Tilpa to Wilcannia. My boat was transferred from Lock 9 on the Murray to Wilcannia, thank you Bob Bonner, and then Greg Ward of Wilcannia drove me to Tilpa. No ute to collect, only gratitude to give.

2010. Ute left in Wentworth at Nikki and Mick's house, and Geoff the mailman drove me to Menindee. So when I finished the ute was close by.

2011. Left the ute in Menindee with Darryl Cowie and when I reached Wentworth, got a lift back to the ute with Geoff the mailman.

And now in 2012 I left the ute in Menindee with Darryl Cowie again, and I suspect I'll get a lift back with Geoff the mailman.

# 34

There are times in life when one needs to cherish something, not just a pleasant memory, but something tangible. Perhaps a family member or a pet. Or perhaps something less annoying, less stressful and way more uncomplicated, for example, a stick. I cherish little sticks not only because they can keep me warm at night, cook my food, or let me stare into their coals, but because they can be chosen to do another really important job, one which requires some dedicated study, commitment and an unhealthy dose of stickpotism. At each campsite I gathered small dead sticks for the fire, and these were broken and placed in piles according to their thickness - which was fairly thin even with the variations. (A campfire with logs, tree stumps and felled forests dragged in with a 4WD is necessary for things other than a fire.) These piles were all longways otherwise it'd be like tripping over a noughts and crosses game in 3D. The bundles were held together with a blue tie and this was known as branch stacking. But there was always one stick that was to be kept separate. No, not to be leader, please, nor was this segregation (Australia has already got this one pretty much under control), nor was this privilege from birthright (at the minute, a package deal with the first one, particularly if you happen to be a white male) or affirmative action (a new concept yet to be discussed in Australia.) No, this was always going to end up as straight meritocracy based on a small protuberance (i.e., the majority of the Australian Federal Government members). The possibilities are lobbied, donated to or bribed (often at the same time), until one is finally selected as the Special Stick. If the stick isn't up to it, disaster awaits. I mean, you could end up with a break or a split. Or a power grab based on trickery. This is also called a double disillusionment.

This chosen stick is the one you will use to lift the billy off the fire. And if your pre-selection process has been rigged, well watch out for someone who snaps under pressure. This stick is also used to poke coals, scratch your eyelid or belt a snake, because it is so talented, so precise, and so stout. But there is one rule to stick by. It must be adhered to. Before you leave the next morning this stick is never tossed into the fire. After camp is broken, this stick is carried gently in two hands up the bank and placed reverently in a shady position. You might even say a quiet prayer, murmur a chant or even bow a little. The government then sends each stick a gold travel pass and a lifetime pension. And the sticks look after their health, not by going to functions in helicopters, attending sport grand finals, or jogging in trackies with several overweight minders, no, they keep fit by walking about. They are sought after by people with a gammy leg, who will gladly pay huge sums just to share food with a crooked stick.

There is a moment each morning that is so elusive it cannot be captured. It is a gradual slow followed by a fast quick. Yet it is not too quick, merely a slow instant. It is a subtle monochrome that slides into a palpable polychrome. A contrast that goes beyond a chiaroscuro into a reality of your next day alive. It's called first light. And of course with a change of bowlers in the late arvo, it has a reverse swing. One morning just after sunrise, after the magic had done its job and the water had turned to glass (and I was relatively sane), it was so still the air was humming. It does that, the air, it vibrates with a stillness rarely seen outside of Tibet, Northern India or assembly at Dubbo West Public School just after little lunch. The little air particles have meetings late each night and decide what sort of day they'll create.

'Hmmm,' says particle number one, 'Let's see. I'm going for the pleasant still day, with a slight southerly breeze later in the arvo. Just some quiet oscillations, really.'

'Oh no,' says a random particle, 'I disagree with your humming idea. You're always so negative. I have a new theory. We could start with your positive day, just to appease the faceless particles, you understand, but then bring in gale-force winds of change?'

The other particles were not happy, they just wanted to stay in their nucleus family. Some particles just don't like to change. And these guys never get free gifts. They are always charged.

As I sat looking at nothing but motionless air, regardless of the undercurrent, I saw some flying insects moving in concentric orbits, and they were following the sunbeams like miniature versions of wood swallows I had seen. They were linear dancing electric clouds, attracting each other with silence as they danced among the particles.

Gum leaves are a thing of great beauty. Apart from doing what leaves normally do, their curve is unique. There was even a knight named after their shape. These eucalypt leaves also do weird things. A bushie once told me, 'Did you know that eucalypt leaves turn their thin sides towards the sun, _and keep following it_?' (emphasis mine - he never spoke like that) Could change the world of sustainable energy production if true.

'Hang on Barry. You saying that gum leaves are like solar panels that track the sun, but not with their face, but with their thin side?'

He grinned. 'Yes that's correct. They do this not to capture sunlight and use its energy but avoid the sun on their face and therefore not lose moisture.'

If this were true, we could have millions of wee solar panels fastened onto gum leaf edges. Need small self-tapers. Or pop-rivets. A new green revolution is on its way. When these panels were old, they could be reconditioned and sold to insects. _For Sale: two as-new solar panels. Reconditioned gearbox. Suit early morning fliers. Offer includes dance instructions._

For any enterprising people, here's an opportunity. An online selling site. Could be called Gum Tree.

Gum leaves also have other properties, and thank goodness they have these because there would be many unexplained deaths in the western country if they didn't. When a leaf dies, or is blown loose, it falls to the ground, as most things do. But gum leaves fall in a fast sideways whirring motion, and swerve and sway as they do this. Now this is a beautiful thing to see, particularly in a strong wind, and you will tilt your face upwards and marvel at the magnificence of nature doing what it does and be thankful that you can appreciate such amazing beauty. But imagine if you will, these same innocent gum leaves falling end over end? Be mayhem. Fishermen dead everywhere with multiple stab wounds. If someone threw these leaves, there would be an opening for a new series on the telly, called a _Game of Throwns._

# 35

Two caravans were talking. They do that.

'Hey Globetrotter, how are you doing? You look great.'

'Why, thank you Rowvan. The marine ply and Laminex have done wonders for my complexion. What about you?'

'Well Globey, let me tell you, that double-cambered roof, exposed beams and the porthole have given me endless pleasure.'

Three blokes were sitting next to the talkative ones. Two had fishing rods. They saw me. 'Hey, want to come in and talk?' This was not a pick-up line. The Darling River has no time nor inclination for such rubbish. (Not because they were beyond it or not interested - if they were, you'd know pretty much straight away. Why, I've had some pretty sordid offers from kangaroos, let me tell you. 'Hey, river boy, want to feel my pouch?' Hussies.) We all sat, and talked (caravans, unlike some humans, know when to shuttup.) The initial greeting stuff, while appearing trivial and even repetitive, is indeed not so. The French repeat Ca Va approximately six thousand times and the Spanish have Hola, albeit all done with different intonation. On the Darling, it is a tone-away-free zone. No games allowed. Aussies keep their timbre in the same forest.

'Gidday mate. From Mallacoote, just trying to catch a fish. You?'

'Brisbane, just paddling for a bit.'

That's it. No-one needs the finer details of your life, such as, who you're running from, why you haven't made reparation with a certain family member or your views on refugees. Several American crime writers and one well-known fiction author who liked Spain, learnt their craft on the Darling. There is no one-upmanship, no pretension, just a curiosity based on an equanimity that is universal in its genuiness. Sparse, concise and non-intrusive. We squatted and chewed the fat. The non-fishing bloke was certainly a part of the team in respect and friendship, and I found out why he wasn't fishing. He was a local and we were on his station.

He said to me, 'The house is up a bit. Call in and have lunch with us?'

And I did. Welcomeness, inclusion, acceptance, call it what you like. This is the Darling River.

A little downriver and a little before Tolarno Station is Bindara Station. The main homestead was built around 1870 (then called Netley). Local clay was used for the bricks, which were fired on the station and other materials were transported up the Darling in paddlesteamers. The station covered just under a million acres and the boundary, in 1871, extended from the Darling river to the South Australian border. Last time I looked that was over seventy miles. Checking the boundary fence would be like painting the Harbour Bridge in Sydney. You start, you reach the other end, then you start again. Sort of the same as hanging the washing in Dubbo. It's such a dry heat, by the time you have finished hanging up a basketful, you can go back to the start and take down the dry clothes. In good years the station had over 100,000 sheep, 750 head of cattle and 820 horses. It also had a store, a pub, a school and a smithy. I wonder did the kids have interschool sport with Tolarno Station which also had a school.

When I was in Menindee, I had phoned Bill and Barb Arnold of Bindara and asked could I stay a while, but couldn't say for sure when I would arrive. Barb had said, 'Yes, you are welcome to stay. You get here when you get here.'

Most people said it would take either one or two days from Menindee to Bindara. I took ten and thought that was fast. My recollections of Bindara are about quails, kindness, mandarins, olive trees and unbelievable generosity. When I left, I paddled past the biggest gum tree on the Darling and I saw a black-breasted buzzard fly off its nest.

# 36

Water rats, also known as rakali, (one of over fifty Australian indigenous names for this rodent,) which you must admit does sound more exciting than 'water-rat', are natives and are usually nocturnal.

One morning, as I paddled along, oblivious to time, space and gravity, a water rat swam around the canoe, diving like a wood duck being pursued by a nuclear submarine. He popped his head up next to me and said, 'Isn't it fun just messing about in a river?'

It's been a while since I'd spoken to a water rat, so I was enthralled. 'How nice to see you. How's Moley?'

'He's having wonderful adventures. Did you know that it was only recently that he saw his first river? Can you believe that? Now he just loves rivers and paddling about in boats.'

I said that No, I could not believe that Moley had only recently seen his first river. Then Ratty disappeared under the water. Then I got to thinking, maybe there are people in the world who have never seen a river?

Every day I'd see at least ten water-rats, and they were always standing on a log, either eating something or grooming their whiskers. Come dusk it was wall to wall water rats. Lucky I'd finished paddling for the day. Be a bit bumpy if I hadn't. On still water they make a nice vee as they swim. Murray cod, from their deep hole or their log, look up like the white pointers do off South Africa when they see a seal, then smash passers-by. Maybe the water rats should swim in mobs of around 5,000 for protection. Or paddle about in little boats like Ratty.

It was the year of the water rat. My year ofs aren't predicted like the Chinese ones, astrology, or government decisions that are based on a fear of losing office, they are what is there at that time. I love the verb to-be. I have had the year of the little eagle (2010), the year of the bulldog ant (2011), the year of the white-breasted sea-eagle (2013), the year of the black cormorant and murray cod (2014). A shared award. Couldn't separate them. The year of azolla (2015) and in 2016, the year of the green fields. For this last one, if you had been anywhere near Bourke or Louth, or even up near the Paroo you would agree. It was like driving through English countryside with coolibahs. On the riverbanks the clover was two metres high. 2017? Get back to you.

There is a rule that says if you are running late the world will poo on you. You leave for work just that little bit late and every light will be red, you will be cut off by tradies, beginner-drivers or death-wish texting pedestrians, and every parking space, even the one with your name on it, will be taken. It's the same on the river. If you sleep in, God help you. The wood will burn black, you will not put the correct amount of grounds in the coffee basket and it will taste like dirt, the canoe would have slipped its rope and be drifting on its way to South America and even after you gather yourself (and the canoe) and settle, you will need to be careful. It's a fine line to sawing off your head while you're not looking.

But if you wake up before first light and straight after you unzip the tent and start shadow boxing, the world will be yours. Everything is in sync. This is an addendum or possibly an added extra to the letting-go principle because you not only let things happen and deal with and enjoy them, but you make things happen. You are in control in a nice way; you blend in with the earth. You will walk past the pile of leaves and flick a match in without looking and before you know it, the percolator is blooping, the gear is packed in the canoe (which is still where it should be) and you are in the zone. And therefore the remainder of the day is dreamy. Time is not even a contention for this everlasting life, this acceptance of the universe and your place in it, (and not because you don't have a watch), the day is as it is. You will smell fragrances of eucalypt, you will see under water and you will never have bad thoughts, anxieties or limited supplies of jelly beans, salted butter or fresh dates. And if you did? Well, you would not worry because nothing could ever worry you.

# 37

Because this was the third time on the same stretch of river, I recognised every ripple, every breeze and even two or three trees. The river was half a banker sort of, and therefore higher than the low 2010 trip, but lower than the flood of 2011. I saw a gum tree in the distance and I said to myself, 'Tony, that is where your father's fishing rod dwells.' And I tied up and walked straight to the spot where the rod had snapped in 2011. I stared one of those thousand-yard stares which meant that my mind was not connected to my body or probably not much else. I floated to me and my dad fishing on the Macquarie River in Dubbo in the late fifties and I cried softly, just a little flow of tears because I missed what we had done together. We had been joined across the father-son divide in ways that were beyond the moment and went into our futures. Sad, but a nice sad. You know that one? Dad died over thirty years ago and I still miss him terribly. I scraped the now dry dirt and found the rod butt. And I dug it out and I still have it.

It is the tab, 'About Me', and the 'Click Here for Information' (not just the book titles, the discography or the awards, but of a life lived. One could say, the dash in between the birth and death dates). It was the real story of me and my dad with the emotions attached. I didn't need, desire or want the family secrets with their guilt, their hang-ups that equalled personal paralysis, or the tut-tuts of supposedly superior morals. This value wrapped in a broken piece of fishing rod, this memory, this piece of cork was all I needed. Okay, the butt of a fishing rod may not seem that special but it was a closeness, a closeness that said, quite loudly, 'You are doing good.' Dad had given me love, in a tight fifties way for sure, but nevermind, it was pure and from his heart. He was there for me.

It was now late afternoon and I was set up for the night. The tent was up, the fire was crackling slowly and I was just sitting with a fishing line pondering the grandeur of the planet when I heard a boat coming. It was a large outboard sound, not a little fisherman's tinnie, and as it got closer I could see the government insignia on the side. Here we go I thought, the taxation department has found me after all. Can't bloody hide anywhere.

'Afternoon. Got a licence?'

'Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. And I have only two lines set, no others set up in my gear and my contact details are on the shrimp trap and I know this year's winner in November.'

And so we talked a while. He told me stories of his job and how he does it. A friendly fellow, one who knew the station owners, every bend of the river and certainly the rules. When I become world leader, apart from making the four-day working week mandatory, free beer on Fridays and clean drinking water for everyone, I would buy the fishing inspectors a couple of satellites, their own drones, and a quieter motor for their boats.

# 38

One night I heard a high-pitched scream and my first thought was that this was the ghost of Jim, recently deceased. I had seen a plaque nailed to a tree that said 'Here lay Jim who loved the river.' And I thought okay, our Jim is still hanging around his favourite bend on the Darling and can make weird noises. I unzipped the tent and said, 'Jim, you're killing me. Now, I can't see you but watch out.' A pair of red eyes blinked at me and I added, 'Jim, you got to lay off the grog for a bit.' Then the eyes shut. So I reached for the long-handled shovel just resting there outside the tent flap, (everyone stores their shovel there) and I threw it towards where the red eyes had been. Sorry Jim. There was no noise of a shovel making bodily contact, like a sword hitting a watermelon, it just went clanging along the bank. Game of Thrones has got a lot to answer for. Must have gone straight through him. Then a little way to the side three pair of red eyes blinked. I decided it was too cold out there and went back in, zipped the tent and leaned a chair against the door-knob. Next morning when I collected the shovel and found my heart, I saw fox prints and several half-eaten fish heads.

Each day I said to myself, 'I wonder what special thing I will see today? A sea eagle, a bathing water rat, or maybe even another fox?'

I went for a stroll through the trees and I did indeed see a fox, purposefully walking like when you know the destination and you're short on time. Tongue out, trotting to music only foxes can hear. Probably in 4/4 time. Didn't even look left or right to cross a gully. What do they teach these animals at fox school? How to blink? There could have been a flood coming or anything. This young vixen stopped under a huge river gum, and then bounded up to a massive broken branch that was hollow and in she went like a ferret. Did I just see that? A fox leaping and scrambling forty feet up a gum tree? I can imagine one fine sunny morning, the frost over and things moving along nicely, and a goanna decides to slither in to that hollow hoping to nab a few duck eggs.

I had seen goannas swimming across the river. These swimming goannas usually spotted me and then went like the clappers to get away. I'm not sure what the clappers are, but they must swim pretty fast. 'And now, up on the stand, after winning gold in the fifty-metre final, is The Clapper. Please stand for the national anthem of the lower Darling.' Swimming goannas bend and wriggle like dolphins except goannas' tails wriggle in the opposite direction. There is no one direction out here in the bush. In the distance I saw one of these goannas swimming across the river and as we came closer together, the goanna and I, I could see that, No, this wasn't an unclappered goanna at all, it was a snake, a very long snake, around (or should I say along) nine foot. If he was any longer I'd wait. Dark brown on top with a sort of yellow underneath. As I drifted closer and admired these glistening colours, this snake with his dark brown head out of the water, looking much like an extra-large beaver, or a wombat on pills, spotted me and swam my way. I recall there was a loud farting noise in the canoe, and my arms went backwards in circles like windmill blades in a hurricane. Here come the clappers again. I don't usually backpaddle without looking where I'm going but I thought I would make a concession, just for today, mind. What would be worse; having that thing sharing the canoe and slithering under my feet, or falling into the fast flowing river with a twenty-foot venomous snake? The snake kept coming and was gaining. There was lots of foamy water and I may have spoken a couple of naughty words. After I had gone backwards for approximately ten kilometres, the snake veered off and swam for the bank he was heading for in the first place. Yeah, that's right, change direction, go your own way and don't look back.

# 39

Early one morning I saw two people fishing from the bank. A man and a woman, whom I'm guessing were around seventy years of age. He's in the regulation sandshoes, footy shorts and flanny, and she's got overalls and a backwards cap. They both waved a little hello. A soft, friendly hello type of wave which said, Yes we're happy to talk for a bit. I can understand wave language; it's one of the nine. (The UN has it on their endangered list. They ring me occasionally.) I backpaddled, slowly this time, and spun around, nowhere near their lines, and we talked. Or at least, she did.

'Do you think we are in control of our own consciousness?'

Well good morning Tony and how the hell are you going? Strike me pink, I just wanted to know had World War Two ended and were the fish on the bite. 'Well...'

'Do you think we can go beyond our existence? Maybe even cross over?'

I was warming up. '...Anyway, who would believe you if you said you had spoken to the dead and had returned like the Egyptians and Greeks reckon they could? A lot of it depends if you think we are really free within the system to be our true self and have the time to explore such realms. I mean, do you think we are trapped in ways to exist rather than to live?' Get that into you.

'Hmmm.'

Thought I had her, didn't I.

But she continued on her merry way. 'Do we live and then choose a philosophy to suit?''

Bloody hell, do you always answer a question with a question? 'Maybe. Do you think one can delve into the subconscious and change it?'

'Of course,' she said matter-of-factly, like she was ordering a flat-white. Then added, 'If one wants to.'

That sort of confirmed my initial idea from last year when I chose to have a non-question spiritual day. She had me hook, line and sinker and she swung them round in circles next to her head, just like my nana used to do, and she had a roll-yer-own in the corner of her closed lips. I like my mind being swung around.

Without looking up, she said, 'Germany lost, again, and I have caught two small yellowbelly so far. Hey, met you before?'

I had thought this, too. And when she added, 'You been down the river before in that red canoe?' I knew where we had met.

'Yes, I met you both two years ago in this exact spot.' And she agreed. Though I might add, at that time it was just a blown kiss and a look away that said, 'Nope, don't want to talk today.'

Words travel across water faster and clearer than if you were in front of the speaker. It's the same as a voice from a motor bike person as it whizzes past. As I paddled off, I heard her say, 'Wouldn't be bad.' No response from him, so she continued, 'Keep you trim I 'spose.'

I just knew he was trying to make his can of beer keep up with his thirst. Then he moved into action. 'Nuh, be no good.' Pause. 'Wouldn't be able to hold a beer.'

Have you ever been to a place in the bush that says peace? We all need these places because what they do is apart from letting us be who we are, they absolve past misdemeanours, current anxieties and future doubts. They ooze acceptance, acknowledgment and even a little cheekiness. Sort of like a judge giving you the eye, a teacher tilting her head, or a member of your preferred gender taking your breath away. All three will cause your exciting tingles in places you may not have thought existed, and if you did know they existed, perhaps they had been dormant for a bit. And were now out of hibernation. You just sit there and it feels good, sort of like you'd like to spend a bit more time there. (Possibly before the law catches up with you. Not me, you, I'm clean.) Your place might be in a rainforest or next to a beach or in the Pilliga Scrub. My place, just in case you have been asleep for the past three-hundred years, is next to the Darling River.

Early one afternoon I pulled into a gorgeous flat sandy beach and I thought, 'This place feels right.' It was quiet, had nice water, big trees, and I was happy to be there, alone. As I dreamed about the world in slow motion, me not the world, a bloke walked over the opposite bank. We nodded hello (the Darling is not usually a wide river).

He said, 'Do you know who won the grand final?'

As I am not yet a psychologist and therefore unable to realise his question was really a quest for a way to impart his knowledge, superiority or possibly an excitement borne of a game previously played (or maybe simply a way into a conversation on the old river), I replied, 'No. Please fill me in.' (I also did not have access to a television, radio or internet connection. Only a tree so I could make trunk calls.)

'Melbourne won. Seen any sheep?'

'Some fat merinos back a bit, all drinking. Who was man of the match?'

'How many? Think it was that fullback fellow, or maybe the half-back, not sure.'

'Around two thousand I'd say. I knew it, best fullback in the game. Halfback pretty good too.'

'Right. Where you off to?'

'Wentworth will do me.'

And he waved, walked back up and over the bank. And as I sat there, way before I unloaded the canoe, I thought, Wow, I like this place even better.

# 40

I like lists. They are not merely used for preparation for a trip down a river, they are the daily medication that manage many ailments, such as, allergies, teenage pimples and even a case of mild insanity. Not a cure, just a holding pattern of life's planes, a cooling-off period in a white-goods purchase, a postponement of procrastinations.

As I approached Pooncarie for the third time, I wrote a beauty. You must always have a heading otherwise you wouldn't know what the list is about, would you, and you must always have the items numbered. And then as each item is done, you tick it. How simple, how effective.

Pooncarie list #3

1. Phone home and all is good.

2. Get a room at the hotel.

3. Meet some nice people.

4. Packed enough coffee in the food drop.

Noises on the river are mostly natural, birds calling, rakali chewing mussels, stars moving, that sort of thing. Occasionally there were motors, dogs or people sounds. As I slowly and peacefully paddled into Pooncarie, having released my list on parole, I heard a new sound. It was George Jones and Tammy Wynette drifting across the river with _We're gonna hold on._ It was on loop, and I was in raptures at the beauty of the duo - never mind their individual brilliance or their harmony. Here was softness enlightening anyone who was within fifty square miles. I stopped paddling and glided on memories loaned by a smoking hot girl accompanied by a man who was a ringer for our future prime minister, with side-burns. I was hearing a sorrowful story, one that still allowed a powerful positive glow within life's struggles, of a darkness and of a vision that was pretty close to the spiritualness I sought.

The music was coming from Col Robinson's home and I tied up at the old wharf site again (I have my own personally-named space and valet) then wafted up to his front door like I was a sniffer dog **** tracking the aroma of a sausage sizzle on voting day.

Col said, 'Hey, want a beer? Will you stay here? Keep me company? Yvonne is in Melbourne.'

Asks a lot of questions for a young fellow. 'Love to Col. Yes, that would be really nice.'

Just two blokes, sitting in front of a cosy wood fire, staring, dreaming alone yet talking and drinking beer together. Who cared what time it was, who cared full-stop. Here was a moment, another one of so many that keep on happening out here. So peaceful, so full of welcoming and so right. Occasionally a lame comment would make its way in, totally invited into the already-borne idiocy and it would create screeching laughter. One of us would get up and poke the fire a bit, the other would grab two beers. One of us would drift out through the huge glass windows over the desert garden and fly just above the water, and the other would transport himself to a different place of love. I slept on the floor in front of the fire and the sleep was pure.

Next morning, I went to the canoe to sort some gear and next to it there were two siblings, a boy around ten and a slightly younger sister. They were wide-eyed, dreamy and ready to pluck off the string-along tree.

She says, 'Hey mister, where did you come from in that?'

'Cape York. Started last week.'

'Wow!'

The boy said, 'Wooar! Where're you headed to?'

'The Yarra River in Melbourne. Should be there in about a week.'

'Cool!' Show and Tell in grade five should be interesting.

Their parents were on top of the bank. Said they were from Orange in New South Wales. This could get interesting because Dad was my age. I said, 'Didn't play rugby league at all?'

'Yeah, I did! How did you know that?'

'It was tough, even with the flattened nose, cauliflower ears and waft of liniment, but the footy shorts and riding boots with no socks gave it away. Come to Dubbo for the trials in the seventies?'

'Hell yeah. Tough team that Dubbo Macquarie.'

'Well, one of your players tackled me after the final whistle and stuffed my knee. Wouldn't know anything about that would you?'

He faltered, but his wife laughed out loud, and the kids grinned with her.

_'Good morning third class. Well, my father was a great footy player. When he went to Dubbo in 1971, an opposing front-row forward kneed him in the nose.....'_

List people, apart from being deeply intelligent, compassionate and dashingly handsome, are also unhinged, untrustworthy, and lower on humanity's rung (which is a kind of list in itself) than an amoeba, because if they do something that is not on their list, they write it on then tick it off. How miserable a life do these people have? They either need a hug, extra medication or an enema. All three at the same time may even be beneficial.

It was time to revisit the Pooncarie list #3.

1. Phone home and all is good. Yes. (tick)

2. Get a room at the hotel. Stayed with Col. (tick anyway)

3. Meet some nice people. Yes. Even a former footballer who knows how to tackle. (tick)

4. Packed enough coffee in the food drop. Indeed I had, plus chocolates hidden inside a hollowed-out book. (tick)

5. Have no sadness, loneliness or feeling down. (tick)

# 41

Birds are the leaders of our society and unfortunate as it may be, they are also unacknowledged. No one gives them seeds in brown paper bags, no one pays them to share a dead pigeon for lunch, and the media won't let them stay and talk. They hunt them away after two prepared whistles. It's a wonder they keep doing what they do. We have to give them trust, and show them we care. By just doing what they do, birds make important decisions for all of us. Stuff like how to build a solid structure, when to rip someone into shreds you don't agree with and how to reverse scientific understanding. So please, charge your glasses, be upstanding and drink a toast to our non-boundary changing feathered leaders.

A bit below Pooncarie there is a bridge. It's a strong looking steel structure, built to withstand floods, earthquakes and visits from politicians (in the last while there have been quite a few needing to slide away quietly because they are slimy. Floods I mean.) but when I went under I could see that a beam replacement may be needed pretty soon. Fairy martins build mud nests from little pellets they have gathered from the water's edge and they nest in communities as space will allow. There were 8,000 fairy martin nests on that bottom beam and it sagged like old plasticine. The lesson here is, if you build something, allow for fairy martins. And stinking slime.

This year, there were hardly any little eagles. Whereas during the last two years I'd get out of the tent in the morning and have to step over them on my way to make coffee. Maybe they ate lots of fish, dead furry bits and kids that hadn't done their homework, then hibernated in caves. You wouldn't want to wake one up. Tear you to pieces. Don't poke the eagle. That's why anthropologists find human remains in caves. Or maybe the eagles followed the wood-swallows up to Queensland to play a game of football. There they go, ten thousand little eagles, flying north for the winter, sunnies on, wearing maroon because they had eaten their first meal in Queensland back when they first started playing rugby league for Ipswich. Probably a meat pie. The little eagles that stayed behind must have had a game of backyard touch football at a cousin's. Even though it wasn't a club game it still counts as their state of origin and therefore they had to wear the blue colours of New South Wales. Probably played on the wing. And took dives.

Some birds I could drift past and they would either continue doing whatever it was they were doing or they would stop and stare. For example, egrets, whistling kites, or condors, but there is one species, the black-tailed native-hen, that wasn't keen on doing either. I would see them in groups of up to sixty birds. They were skittery, flicky, and had the most amazing physical attribute of any bird I have ever seen. Not their cute pinky-orange legs, not the green and red bill, not the two-tone soft colour scheme currently appropriated by gentrificated inner-city types, and not the piercing yellow eye that currawongs copied (without permission.) No, these fade into mere ornithological observations, an architectural hipster fashion and a serious court-case involving a patent (which I can't comment on because it's still before the courts - possibly near a body of water in the front garden) because these birds can do something that defies science and the laws of the universe. They can transform into a liquid. Drop of a hat, quick as a wink and even facilely, they can do it. There you'll be, just enjoying the presence of a mob of environmentally-opportunistic eccentric domestic-fowls, and they will spot you. A couple will start by running on legs that reach right up to their armpits (the catwalk not an option) and then everyone catches on and says, Let's go guys, make the lines two or three wide and let's go. And this is where the states of matter change. They become a stream of liquid as they flow over the bank, logs and buildings. They become a fluid of flowing escapees that is also able to move upstream, double back and even do figures-of-eight. Maybe that's why they are called water birds.

A tinnie went past, two blokes cut the motor and it swerved in to me. 'Hey, saw you go past. Anyway, it's Fathers' Day and we are going back to see our kids so would you like our spare beer? There's not much here but she's in a bucket with ice. What do you reckon?'

'Thank you very much, that would be nice.' Would I like your spare beer? Oh, alright.

I have children and I know that Fathers' Day means an acknowledgement of the days and weeks of hard work, the frustrations and the love you have given - and that's before they came along. Babies have a delightful smell. Not talking pooey nappies or regurgitated food particularly, although earthiness does have its own leveller, I mean the real smell of babies, their cheeks, their bellies and their fat little legs. It is a light sweetness, a gift that allows you the freedom to listen to the helplessness, the innocence, perhaps even your bloodlines racing through from past days and leading you and your babies through to a gorgeous future. Being a part of raising babies (all the way through school, teenagehood, and in the hood) is a feeling that starts in the lower tummy (same starting place as anxiety, excitement and doing long-division) and extends vertically into the lower throat of your life's changes, your thankfulness for their good health and usually your deep longing for a good night's sleep.

They had given me thirteen cans of beer and I didn't even know their names. The bloke's; the beer's names I knew better than my children's. True love, right there. Maybe I should have named my kids differently? 'Hey Pale-Ale, come and get your lunch. Bring Lager and Pilsener with you. And don't forget little Potato Chip.'

As I was drifting and drinking, my two favourite action verbs, my water-rat friend surfaced and swam alongside. I said, 'Hi Ratty. Hey, you want a beer?'

'Is the water wet? What do you think I'm following you for?'

'Come on then, climb in and let's mess about in a boat.'

We sat and drank and talked and he was such a nice fellow. I find it amazing that certain children's books have more appeal to me now than they did when I was younger. And as for using one of these classics as a school-study piece, my godfather, now that is a sin. _Alice in Wonderland_ is so abstract and out there, I still have no idea what it's about. The idea that Peter Pan never grew up is powerful. _The Wind in the Willows_ was so close to home, even in its English countryside way it was freaky. I grew up in West Dubbo on the banks of the Macquarie River and spent twenty-three hours of each day on or in the river, so to read the adventures of Ratty and his friends was amazing. And now, here I was sharing a cold beer with the man himself. 'Hey Ratty, when you go on adventures, do you miss home?'

'Right now, I am here where I should be, so no.' A philosophical water rat. How refreshing. 'Please pass another tinny. The swallow says that returning is a natural calling, much like leaving is.'

Then I heard pan pipes and I began to forget everything that had just happened, so I wrote it down. It was like waking up after a dream. If you don't write it down, the experience vapours away because your eyes need to open.

I got to stop drinking.

At a recent Fathers' Day raffle in a country pub, the tickets were four for a dollar. To say the prizes were value for money would be disingenuous. To say they were world class would be an understatement. To say anything would be unfair. I dare you to listen to this selection of prizes:

1. A male grooming set (at the minute, quite popular within the church, youth groups and assorted sports-coaching staff), two carpenter's pencils and a bottle of heavy-duty degreaser.

2. A magnetic keyring, a set of Allen keys and a voucher for $20 worth of leaded (old cars out there).

3. A weed sprayer, a socket set and some knobbly things (truly).

4. A wheelbrace, a box of Maltesers and a sixteen-month calendar with 'girls'. (I have heard of all three, except for the sixteen bit. Why make a sixteen-month calendar? I suppose there would be four extra girls to talk to. Why stop at sixteen? Months.)

# 42

Hand (man) wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.

H. W. (Bill) Tilman's notice in the personal column of _The Times_ in 1959.

Parrots can be taught to speak; everyone knows this (you have to cut the feathers on one wing only, so they wouldn't fly away.) Us Dubbo lads taught cockatiels, budgerigars and even a couple of local councillors to talk (they are in the galah family.) We also taught willy-wagtails to recite Henry Lawson poems and the ingredients needed for a small selection of Country Women's Association products, for example, quince jam, sponge cake and tomato relish. When we were asked to assist celebrity chefs and radio talk-back hosts with their lack of language skills, manners and brains, we declined. Standards were high in Dubbo. Just so you know, we always cut the feathers on the wing that we didn't like; the right wing.

On the lower Darling, the sulphur-crested cockatoos were back in range. These birds are weird. For starters, they have been around for millions of years. You may see photos of old baldy cockatoos, using walking frames, well, they are some of these ancient ones. White cockatoos fly from high to low in a sort of loopy swoop, scaring every man and his dog, then, just before they land on the upward, they fold their wings in to their body and their momentum shoots them onto a branch. I must admit, it does look cool. Particularly as they raise their yellow crest on landing, look around and say, 'Whaaat?'

One morning, as I watched a flock of these birds, one said, 'Hello Kevin.' I swear had that been my name, I would have abstained from drinking beer for at least a week. Another replied, 'S'up?' I was doing okay up to this point, even though the earlier consideration wasn't really gaining purchase, but when another said, 'I need a drink,' I decided to give up bad language and join a monastery as well. No point being a part of wider society where talking parrots play with your mind.

'Good morning Brother Kevin, would you like to share anything with us?'

What I need to know is, who taught the sulphur-crests on the lower Darling to talk like that? Way too much time on their hands.

Some nights there would be tapping on the side of the tent and at first I thought it was light rain. But a sideways low rain seemed unusual. It turned out to be little brown frogs trying to get in. They had heard me reading out loud and they would squeak and carry on until I let them in. 'Oh please,' they chorused, 'let us in and read us an extra chapter tonight?' Frogs can't read. Wonder how they fill out the census, unemployment forms and bets on the football. 'Oh, alright, you can come in then, but only if you're tent trained. We don't want this place looking like a heron's nest.' I was reading A. J. Mackinnon's _The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow_ , an account of his amazing and hilarious adventure in a Mirror dinghy. And his story excited me so much I decided I would get a sailing boat, a wooden one of course. Maybe I could dig a hole in the backyard, fill it up using the garden hose and sail in there. And reword Bill Tilman's notice:

Hands, and perhaps other body parts, wanted for quite short voyage in small boat in backyard pond in Brisbane: Pay? You're kidding, aren't you. Future prospects? What do you think this is, we're only going round in little circles. Pleasure? You wish.

# 43

Self-promises can be transitory, though perhaps they ought not to be so. Should self-promises be forever? Anyway, how long does forever last for? (Forever, perhaps?) I need a beer already. Or does the stability of said promise depend on its perceived and personal level of moral importance? And if that is the case, that is pretty dodgy because one person's low level of morality can surely be another's believe-it-at-all-costs item. Maybe a self-promise is like poetry which can be criticised according to specific literary criteria but not challenged or judged for its beliefs. To hold onto something forever, a value, a I'll never do that thing is a big call. I'm not so good at it. What about you? Have you ever done something you said you'd never do again, as in, you broke a self-promise? Or maybe it's a thing you haven't done and said you would never do it no matter what. You may be strong, you may be virtuous and true, and good on you, but I'm a weakling. I break my promises every other day. 'No, tomorrow, I will not drink coffee. It is evil.' Before I know it, the pot is blooping, I smell that smell and I'm gone. Perhaps the coffee thing is only a 2 out of 10 in the scale of life's values.

After the seventies trip, I had promised myself that I would not pick up brown snakes again (already broken) and I had promised, perhaps even more strongly, that I would never drink pig's blood again. I mean, why would you do that the first time anyway? But alas, a lack of moral strength is another of my strengths, and one which would again be displayed.

I caught a pig, I cut its throat and I drank its blood. I know; stupid doesn't even come close. The seventies have never really left me. What was I thinking? Actually, when you do something as dopey as that, you don't normally think first. Like picking up snakes. Have you ever drunk fresh blood? It's hot and it gets sticky really quickly so you have to be fast. It's also crazy, dangerous and perhaps a little anti-social. 'Wo, look at his teeth. Hey, what's that you're drinking? It looks like.... run everyone, run!'

If you haven't been to a country show you may still have time. There's still a few around. The Wentworth Show would be a good start. It's a ripper. **** They have the usual whip cracking, the jams, the cakes and they also have the Beaut Utes. My father's A-model ford was there using the memories of two little West Dubbo kids as a bargaining tool for first place but the hot favourite was a green number, sleek and dripping in surfboards and gorgeous girls wearing bikinis. Or were they handkerchiefs? I was in. I like pretty utes. But as I purveyed the contestants I saw another who caught my eye. She was smoking hot, and my goodness I love curves. She had faded blue paint, brown rust to add to her lustre, and her yellow wheels, her waterbag hanging off the front bumperbar and the dangling rabbit-traps brought me straight back to Dubbo's lost kingdom. But Miss Feral (I love personalised number plates because they speak of people with way too much time on their hands, like those who teach white cockatoos to talk) did not make it past Entry in the Beaut Ute category. The old bloke who owned the blue ute had a quiet demeanour that was powerful because it said, 'I don't care.' Or similar words.

I knew a barmaid once. She was named Rosie, she was beautiful, she was my life and one which I thought was worthless after we parted. So when someone says to me, in a derogatory, crude or sleazy way, 'Oh yes, barmaids, well we know what they're like. Har har...' I rip their throats out. No excuse me, no feint, just a quick wrench and they have trouble breathing.

At the Royal Hotel, Wentworth, during the show weekend, there were two barmaids.

And Wentworth, never mind hoisting a Fergie tractor up on a pole because they saved your town from the floods in 1956, barmaids will keep your town safe from any future floods, war or pestilence. The water will be too overwhelmed to enter the town, the invaders will bypass Wentworth and hit Mildura instead, and the grasshopper plagues will veer north-west and die in the desert. That's the innate power of a barmaid at the Royal Hotel, and I suspect in any hotel. Maybe I could make a captain's call and make each barmaid a Dame. I somehow know what their response would be.

The crowd that lined up to get a drink was nine deep. Seriously. Arms waggled high, money waving like flags blowing in the winds on an embassy boulevard, foolhardy newbies dived over the line, striving to be served, yelling their orders, but the grey nomads crashed-tackled them. Locals were more patient and used their eyebrow to gain attention. No-one knows this, but planking and crowd surfing were invented in Wentworth during show time. Prone bodies were trodden on, and any showing signs of life were passed to the side like firies passing a hose over their head, and when some lucky person actually got through and turned to head back, with five schooners, two house wines and a packet of salt and vinegar chips, she was allowed free passage through the salmon that were heading upstream to their sacred waterfall. Well done girls. You were poetry and you stepped up. There will be no further hospitality theory classes, ever; all students will be required to be behind the bar at the Royal Hotel, Wentworth, during show weekend and if they make it through relatively unscathed, then it's a pass.

The Wentworth show reinforced that I need genuine bush people and natural food to stay alive. As in, I need to connect to a mob with an outlook on life that is borne of the earth and water and maybe not concrete and plastic. And I crave wholesome food like crusty whole-wheat bread with wattle seeds and saltbush leaves, home-made jams and relishes, and freshly picked almonds. And local olive oil. Civilisations have been founded, maintained and destroyed because of olive oil.

Certain Mediterranean countries have been known to cheat on its origins, to weaken its purity, and to manipulate the markets. But here we have a local oil, cloudy green and oozing with dripping goodness. I live on olive oil. I rub it on my skin, I cook with it and I drink it. Some days that's all I have to eat - a litre of olive oil. And a pint of Pilsener. Had to clear that up.

Wentworth, at the junction of the Darling and the Murray has a country feel others try to imitate or invent, but Wentworth is a natural. From its original people, to the explorers and onto the settlers; it has few rivals.

# Epilogue

On the way home I knew some hotels to stay at from before and I had old friends to see. It was a quiet driving time, even with Striggio on full blast pretending I was in one of the choirs, or Irish ballads to sing along with or a local talkback radio station to listen to with both callers and hosts insisting they are right, all of the time and that there is no other way. I only ate two meals a day. One, a big breakfast, the other an evening meal, and I loved it. It was a finishing time, a reflection on what had just been, what I was going to do at home, and when on earth could I get out here again. What if I lived out there? Would that ruin it?

The country hotels I stayed in on the way to and from the river all had idiosyncrasies, character or were a bargain. The Imperial Hotel in Hay was earthy and across the road I got to meet the artist Chris McClelland, and at a local café with a breakfast so fantastic I didn't eat for three weeks, I bought some real liquorice, made in Junee. Which I ate three weeks later. At one hotel, I stood under a shower rose that was a metre in diameter and it was like standing under a waterfall. In another, I had a room for $25 and this included a hot breakfast. Which I ate three weeks later. I could feel stuff inside welling up. It was gratitude, a feeling of a greater connectedness, and one which I knew would always be with me. Real hotels, art that didn't need to hide because it was so brilliant, local food and I was going home.

I called in to Dubbo and I apologised to my old friend Peter for a wrong I had done. Only took me forty years to get around to it. Redemption and forgiveness, those two almost forgotten but powerful words that don't often get a guernsey in modern times. They only get a blue singlet and a pair of footy shorts. Do we have to earn our way through life's trials to be free? Are there no shortcuts? I'm going back to the river to speak to two old fisherpeople. Bet they'll be there in that same spot next time. Hope they wave good.

I had chosen not to predispose this 2012 trip to loneliness nor to happiness. I just wanted to let it be. Someone wrote a song about that. A letting-go principle, okay, based on a list, but also on every moment and what might be within those moments. A let's have fun in the sheer joy of life, a sense of wonderment and awe in what we all have and perhaps do not cherish enough and my goodness pass me the megaphone.

Back home in Brisbane, my writing was going well with plenty of changes, corrections and questions. I supposed this was all normal, but I wasn't sure; I was new to this. Where to from here?

# Last bit

The familiarity of the three canoe trips in the same place was not boring. Doing the same thing over and over can produce change. I know, lots of people have said otherwise, including the moustached-science man himself, but let's leave the scientific approach out for a bit, because, for example, if you relisten, reread or redo the same thing again, (if there's a reasonable time difference,) it may stay the same, or not, but you are different and therefore may get different meanings and enjoyment. Fast forward to three trips on an old river. The same thing three years in a row but my goodness how extraordinarily different. For starters, the river itself was different each time; a low river, a flooded river and a medium river with a fresh. And I too was different. From teaching to retiring, writing, lying...

Acute loneliness may not have been dead and buried (perhaps wrapped in a shroud awaiting viewing) but I was getting there in the understanding of what it was and why it was. There were, and still are, times when I needed to fall back on something, preferably not a river red gum, a weir or a bed of coals, but more of a quiet lean on one who sort of understood me, this being me. This was a belief, perhaps limited occasionally, in the self and an acceptance of where I was at within that self. And when I did stumble, like I did at Pooncarie in 2010, I thought I did okay. Hindsight can be incorporated withing the moment. Trust me. (Heard that before?) As the three trips progressed, I found that the less I searched and the less I strived, well, life became full of beautiful things and I didn't need an external item to fall back on so much, particularly one of the items listed. (I didn't have to read that one twice.) And I have almost came to terms with solitude because not only do I realise it is an essential part of what I need (like beer, chocolates and rugby league) I discovered that solitude is not an illusion or an avoidance of deeper desires, nor is it a cry for company. Solitude is a free choice. And even though you are alone, you may not be lonely, because it says independence and confidence, not isolation. Yet, if the solitude doesn't involve an uplifting ectasy, include personal questioning, total involvement in what is around, plus a reconnection to family and society afterwards, then insanity is never far away. Bet I paddle alone from Menindee to Wentworth again.

In the first bit, I indicated that my God would not be a religious one, and I still hold onto this. I now believed that there was no God. However, I cannot deny the impact of religion whatever you believe it to be. Its history, its beauty and its compassion. But there were too many discrepancies, too much fear, and way too much oppression and control. And too many rules and too much hypocrisy. I know, I'm cherry-picking the good bits again. But damn it, from me to me, I still had one foot in the middle east, trying to understand about that bloke from Nazareth and his history. Struggling I say, struggling. Probably wander about the old city of Jerusalem again shortly. I thought I still needed a belief that was an ideal, a dream even, but also something real I could use as a guide. Or had I evolved out of the trees of God searching and progressed into the walking uprightness of living a spiritual life? Maybe there was no secret and no specific time in which to feel the connected-to-the-entire-universe feeling; if you're ready, it just is when and where it is. I had felt this and I wanted more.

Last Tuesday I went for a walk to buy milk at the corner shop. As I was about to cross the road, I saw a lady in a motorised wheelchair and she was having difficulty getting up a slope. I thought that if she ditched the electric motor and bolted in a V8, she would have more traction but nevermind. I suppose her insurance premiums would bump up then. And as I was thinking, perhaps I could lend a hand, I saw two blokes walking along her side of the road and they were obviously criminals. I can tell these things. They were scruffy as hell, had straggly moustaches that wouldn't make a cricket team, coloured tatts covering every square inch of their bodies and they were saying very big swear words. They noticed the lady who, I might add had her purse opened on her lap, and they nudged each other and pointed, and I thought don't you dare. How weak would that be, stealing from a disabled person. They went up to her and as I fantasised about what a brave person would do (not me), they said, 'Hey, let's get you going here.' And they pushed her up that slope and then said, 'You okay now? Anything else you need?' And she said, 'No, thank you so much.' And the two evil people, well they walked off, laughing and telling rude stories. As I hid behind my preconceived discriminations, insecurities and judgements based on appearances, I had enough nous to realise that I had just seen a moment of love, a moment that went beyond what I had thought was God. Thank you my beautiful river for everything you do for me.

Will I be going back to the Darling? How could you ask that? I have no money, no prospects but the pleasure is strong. Adventure cannot be contained or ruled by logic nor should it be. The day I choose being sensible as a way of life, all is lost. For the record, in 2013 I paddled from Louth to Wilcannia, in 2014 from Wilcannia to Pooncarie, in 2015 from Bourke to Louth and in 2016 Louth to Tilpa. It is now 2017 and I am strapping the canoe onto the ute.

# Acknowledgements

2010

To the first people of this land, thank you for sharing your river.

To Evonne. One of the reasons I love you is because you let me be me.

To my editor Laurel Cohn. Thank you for the guidance. Again.

To IndieMosh Publishers. Ally Mosher, you are a gem. All your work was professional, fair and friendly. Thank you for all you have done.

Peter Harris. Thank you so much for the cover. And putting up with my endless questions.

The proofreading team of Judy Harris, Les Godfrey, Janet Sales, Ted Dobe and Helen Goodchild, has done an almighty job. With approximately three minutes notice and two minutes available work time, they checked and double-checked. I am extremely grateful. Thank you.

Brayden Dykes from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Thank you for the map. Again. Not just for a job well done, but your generosity.

Geoff Metcalfe of Wentworth. Mailman extraordinaire with a heart of gold. Thank you for everything. You are a good man.

Rosco Canoes of Brisbane. Professional, and always supportive with fantastic gear. Nice letters, too. Thank you Marjon.

My appreciation to Jane Fanshawe for permission to quote from _African Sanctus_ by David Fanshawe, __ published by Collins and Harvill Press, London, in 1975. Copyright, David Fanshawe, Fanshawe One World Music.

'Birds, like the Australian cockatoo, have at least a 90-million-year history.' I knew they lived a while but strewth. The survival of birds, (even after the mass extinction, 65 million years ago,) came down to Australia. That's right, '...birds evolved in Australia.' We were first. I knew it. Professor Gisela Kaplan from the University of New England, was kind enough to talk with me and let me quote from her _Bird Minds_ (2015) CSIRO Publishing, Australia.

Emus and dinosaurs. Information courtesy of Jonathan Cramb, Discovery Centre, Queensland Museum.

Information on the fishway at weir 32 was from Luke Pearce, Fisheries Conservation Manager, NSW Department of Primary Industries. Also from the Lower Murray Darling Catchment Management Authority, Fact Sheet No. 031.

Rob McBride of Tolarno Station. Thank you for the history and the welcoming emails.

PS Rodney information courtesy of Tim Smith, Heritage Branch, Office of Environment and Heritage (NSW).

The Telegraph Hotel, Pooncarie. Thank you to Trevor and Vivian Biggs for looking after the food drop. And me. You are the Darling River.

To the Geelong Boys. That was a special afternoon. The stories, the food, and the inspiration for me to make the decision to retire. Your fault for sure. Thank you Nick, James and Jim.

To Andrew Hull from Bourke. Thank you for permission to quote from your poem, _Elemental_. Not to mention: the lift to the river to start the 2015 trip, leaving the ute at your place, the invite to the _Festival of a Thousand Stories_ in Bourke and the review of _Drifting down the Darling._ A true man of the river.

The Porters from near Palinyewah Public School who grow oranges. Thank you for the space on the front lawn for my canoe, twice.

Nikki and Mick of Wentworth. Thank you for looking after the ute. Plus the friendship and excitement about life.

Historical information about Wentworth is courtesy of the Wentworth Shire Council, notwithstanding my take on events. (Which means I may have added stuff.) The Wentworth Information Centre staff have been helpful beyond helpful.

2011

Darryl Cowie, proprietor of the Burke and Wills Motel, Menindee. Your genuine kindness was greatly appreciated. And for 2012 as well.

Col (also known widely as 'Battler') and Yvonne Robinson of Pooncarie. Two warm-hearted lovely people.

Thank you Jodie Treverrow of Palinyewah Public School for your kindness to a weary traveller. As mentioned in the First Bit, her grandfather, Harry Treverrow, had taught my dad, my brother, and me, at Dubbo High School. That is as fascinating as it is unusual. I remember him well.

2012

Stewart and Michelle Oates of Bootingee Station. Thank you for your generosity, showing me around and sharing your stories.

Bill and Barb Arnold of Bindara Station. I now have two mandarin trees courtesy of seeds from your trees. Vale Bill, you lovely man. Thank you Barb for permission to use information from your website. And for coming to my book launch in Brisbane in 2015.

_The Wind in the Willows_ by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Now here's a fun tale that follows the adventures of Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad in the English countryside. It's also about being happy at home, or not, of helping others and of taking responsibility.

Permission to quote Bill Tilman's _Times_ notice for a crew member from _Mischief Among the Penguins_ is from John Coefield.

http://www.v-publishing.co.uk/books/categories/ the-tilman-series/mischief-among-the-penguins.html Publisher is Tilman (2015)

_The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow_ by A. J. Mackinnon (Black Inc: 2009) was recommended to me by a lady in a bookshop. She said, 'You will like this one.' She was right. It is a classic in the true sense of the word. An adventure, slightly off beat, and full of life. And, might I add, beautifully written. Thank you Sandy for the letters.

Thank you Sandra from the Royal Hotel, Wentworth, for permission to include the stories of the card players and the barmaids.
