after the deluge

In a forest last week...
scribbly gums
paper wasps
swamp hens
lagoons
makeshift bridges
frilly lizards
paperbarks
kangaroos
wild may

and a storm...
A storm indeed.
A storm that has made these the last photos my beloved camera (as she was) and I will take together in quite a while.
I dropped her off at the repair shop this morning.
Seems despite a snug fit down my front, fast running legs and desperately hunched shoulders one cannot keep a camera dry when several kilometers deep and just so slightly lost within a forest when a thunderstorm decides to hit.

Oh my goodness... soaked as soaked could be we powered on along paths that turned to mini muddy torrents, over creeks, up hill and down...between thunderclaps and heavy drops upon our faces that we drank right off our skin as we ran. The little ones were frightened and cold but perhaps like the Mama kangaroo that almost bounded blindly into us I reassured them and reminded them to laugh and feel, really feel, that beating wet and roaring wind for what it was...
wild simple adventure.

So while I may be camera-less for a bit... I am also a little *water* wiser... and somewhat more astute at reading maps... and I wouldn't give it back, that little adventure.

In fact I went back.
To the scene of the crime.... the next day.
Seven kilometers of beautiful forest filled with post rain frog call I walked, and emerged just post sundown. Tired yet dry, satiated and smiling again even if at the fact that that's how it should have been the first time.
It may not have been revenge but it was indeed most sweet and still wild after the deluge.