306. Where only mad dogs and Englishmen go

Although the season was in its infancy, Nerida had memory of seasons passed, of trials endured, unnecessary risks miscalculated. Her eyes scanned the ragged cliff line towering over the valley, noting the bubble of cumulo that would thunder up into the atmosphere as the afternoon wore on. With that level of cloud already at mid-morning, by mid-afternoon nimbus would be painted on the nether regions of the cumulo, as it broke and buffeted on the crags and clefts of granite and eucalypt.

Stick to the dry schlerophyll today, she cautioned; l leave dry creek beds for more fortuitous times. Well she recalled that early summer nine seasons ago, where she and Robert had feebly attempted to navigate their way through the tortuously, impenetrable bush via the boulder ridden water-course, only to be swept into a beaver-dam of debris, spending a damp and uncomfortable night.

The bush only forgives the cautious.