Lost - Part Two

Off we trotted in the direction taken by the group. No problemo. Then suddenly, a conundrum, our track was splitting into two directions, one path winding up and one veering left.

Common sense dictated that we follow the track up, but when you are only twelve years old with an overactive imagination, it only takes the smallest thing to send you into a tail-spin.

Have you ever heard an angry koala ? Sure, they're all cute and fuzzy wuzzy bundles to look at, but when they are riled up they sound very much like a rage-driven, scientific experiment gone wrong, over-sized, razor-back pig, with sharpened tusks, red eyes and an insationable lust for human blood.

So when we heard the bellow of the angry over-sized razor-back (or yes, more feasibly, the peevish koala) we did what any person in their right mind would do. We back-tracked and moved at high speed away from the noise and down the other track. Tell me you wouldn't have done the same ?

It didn't take us too long to realise that we were completely alone. We tried 'coo-ee-ing', with no success but we were still too rattled by the loud grunting, screetches to turn back the way we had come.

The funny thing is that I don't recall being particularly concerned by our predicament, I figured we should head for the rise and from there we should be able to find a vantage point to work out which way to go. I guess growing up as Daddy's little fishing buddy had instilled certain outdoor survival skills in me, or perhaps it was all those episodes of The Famous Five, either way, we calmly kept on walking.......to be continued.....

Those were the days.

Last night was my twenty year school reunion, which I did not attend. Before you start jumping to conclusions, I would have gone, but two States and a Tuesday 6.30pm time slot stood between me and the school gates. So I stayed home, watched Packed to the Rafters and drank sleepy-time tea, sorry, was it twenty years or fifty ? My memory seems to be failing me.

On the whole I have pretty fond memories of my time at school. I attended the same school for my entire education (can anyone see where the seed of my reluctance to break a routine may have been sown ?) and moved through various circles of friendships during the course of the thirteen years. A few of those friendships have withstood the test of time whilst others simply drifted away.

The twenty year reunion brought back memories of events which occurred during my school years and I thought I would share one of those with you today.

For want of a better title, let's call this one 'Lost'. Or perhaps 'Lost in the Bush,' or maybe even 'Lost in the Bush without Any Supplies for 12 Long, Cold Hours.' No, that will give the whole story away, let's go back to 'Lost.'

It was Grade Six camp and a gentle hike had been scheduled in. Now I don't know how long the hike was actually supposed to take, but I can safely assume that no one counted on twelve hours. Well, in all fairness, only two of us hiked for twelve hours, the others were all safely back at the camp, showering, eating dinner and no doubt telling dramatic tales of their own.

In our defense, it really could have happened to anyone. There was a teacher at the front of the group, introducing us to the finer points of 'power walking' and a teacher at the rear with a cattle dog herding up the stragglers (okay, I made that up, there was no cattle dog, but in hindsight, a cattle dog would have saved us all a lot of trouble).

Because I am an extremely kind soul, with the patience of a Saint (Coach, if you are reading this, please stop laughing immediately) I stopped to wait with Miss K who had picked an extremely poor moment to suffer the misfortune of an untied shoe lace.

That was all it took, when she was done and we looked around, we were alone. The front group had turbo charged onward and upward, the stragglers were probably fawning over a colourful display of mould on a fallen tree trunk, either that or chasing pixies.

Yes, we could have waited for the stragglers but we had seen which direction to take, so with the infinite wisdom of twelve long years on the planet, we followed. Or so we thought...........to be continued....