Where we slept

It had been a beautiful day and promised to continue sunny and dappled, into the warm evening. We’d been bushwalking all day, with no real destination, just a rambling holiday enjoying nature, and escaping from the city and it’s crowds, the anxiety of the possibility of Covid infection left behind with the grey noise. Hiking holiday sound way too athletic. Ours was more a very long stroll. Absorbing the green countryside, taking a zillion photos from vast landscapes to tiny cicada shells, and chatting or singing as we walked.

Eventually we’d need to find a spot to camp overnight and it was better to set up in the late daylight than fumble around for whatever was needed by torchlight, and hope the matches ignited before the box ran out. We walked along a pretty rural laneway that followed a small river. Fresh smelling gum trees lined the riverbanks and sharp-leaved bushes sheltered tiny wrens with alert waggy tailfeathers, and farmland hills stretched out behind barbed wire on the other side.

Hmm, no camping spot here, I thought, almost at the same time as I saw the perfect camping site. For no reason other than our pleasure, some dear person in the past had cleared a paddock right on the river’s shore, grassy and gently graded down to the edge. There had once been a little wooden jetty, now holey and unboarded. It was just lovely. I spun around. Behind us was a white farm house away up on the hillside, just in view. And other than that, we were alone with nature.

What luck! The farmers must have cleared a view and a landing place back in the days when the river was used for transport of people and produce rather than purely for pleasure and the odd fishing outing.

We unpacked, set up our sweet dome tent home, and had a little fire crackling before the sun gave up for the day. Sausage on a stick was our gourmet feast. As the cicadas finally silenced in the evening shadows, and the lorikeets squabbled for the best roost, we mulled over how life could be really truly great, when we offloaded our daily work, our worries, our politics and all the things of modern life… and just became ourselves, part of the land and part of nature, not competing against it. Well that’s about as philosophical as you get on a walking holiday, unless you find a really good pub and need to conduct a beer garden summary of life, the universe, and…well you know how it goes, after a few too many chardies.

As it goes when you’re without electronic devices and have been exercising all day, it was time to sleep, way before the after-the-news documentaries would have finished on the TV at home.

And so we snuggled into our little tent, leaving the door open for the cool breeze to creep over us as we slept, and the fly screen closed to moderate the mozzies, spiders and any passing snakes looking for warmth at night. I dropped straight into a lovely slumber, happy with the passing day and curiously excited for tomorrow’s adventure.

I half awoke. Oh thanks bladder, I thought. As I persuaded my eyelids to open enough to let me wander away from the tent, I saw we were so softly illuminated by a quarter of a moon in a clear sky, just enough to cast an almost shadow and stop me needing a torch to move around.

Oh how beautiful is this place?! The moonlight made little shimmers on the river, and it was numbingly quiet. The grass was soft and dew damp, and I slid on my shower thongs in case of prickles or creepy crawlies.

I listened to him snoring contentedly for a moment, and then quietly unzipped the tent screen door and wandered into the night.

A breeze began. And stopped, and began. Warmish and floofing around with my oversized sleeping tee shirt around my legs. The moon blinked as a scrappy cloud blew across its glow. And another followed.

Bimulous night, I thought with a little shivver. Uncomfortable to the soul, pulling our thoughts around until we’re not sure which way they should go.

But I felt like walking in the darkness, down to the river, I didn’t really know why, but I went.

Staring toward the shimmery black stream, stepping gently through the grass, I felt… company… but I couldn’t stop staring at the river. At the moonbeams. At the breeze on the water. I moved forward, transfixed, absorbed in the beautiful night.

I heard no steps. No words. No breath. No cloth gathered by naughty breeze. But I knew I was not alone. Very slowly I turned my head.

Without moving the soil, without disturbing the dewy grass, a person; rather transparent but definitely a person; emerged from the ground. It was almost soft-focussed; there, but if I blinked would it still be there? It was. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Just a person. Looked at me pleasantly. Kindly. Then looked at the river with a long slightly squinty gaze. And walked alongside me. Drifted? No. Walked. But made no impact. Calmly gazing down the paddock, just like I had been. Walking to the river.

I didn’t feel afraid. Was I asleep still? Sleepwalking myself to a drowning accident? I really did not care. I felt an overwhelming need to go to the water. Walking in the semi-moonlight, down a paddock, with a… another… um… person… seemed totally normal and OK. And as we walked more people gently oozed from the soft warmth of the rich summer soil and walked with us to the sparkling river. One by one arriving, glancing at me dispassionately, as though I had always been there. More, and more, until the field was full of folk keeping me company. 

One said “come with us” quietly, almost a whisper. “Not now” I said, whispering too. 

And as we walked, one by one, they turned and dissolved into the night. Leaving me standing in a soft rainshower, away down the grassy field. The field that I now understood, was a long abandoned cemetery. Breathing deeply, calmly, feeling like I’d made the right decisions about everything. Staring at the cloud scudding over the moon. 

And I needed to pee.