THEY WENT RIVER SWIMMING

On this day we drove for a long time along a single road which cornered and bent and went up hills and downhill. The inside of our car flickered with sunlight like a candle as we navigated our way around trees whose tops stood high into the sunshine. I turned around from my seat to check on the kids, they were sleeping. I held my twisted turn a little bit longer than expected, mesmerised by both the absence of cars behind us and the plume of dust trailing behind us.

The bumpy rocking of the car over a narrow bridge gently nursed my son to wake up. Outside, there was the peaceful being of a river streaming around the mountains edge which we had just traced. Out of the car, we all followed a damp dirt trail which slithered under fallen trees, rocks and down into a myriad of smooth and flat pebbles. These pebbles formed a satin bed for a crystal clear river which lazily streamed down from the surrounding mountains.

I balanced along a tree trunk and sat myself down on the thickest part. My feet dangling close to the glassy water. It was cool and fresh, but the heat of the day was not uncomfortable enough to make swimming an inviting option for me. Across the way, my son was already knee deep in the water and Matty was busy wetting his feet exploring further ahead and closer to the bridge. My daughter was sleeping peacefully in tune with the nature around us.

Matty and our son practised skimming flat bed rocks along the top of the smooth river top, they swam over to large boulders on the other side and he swimmingly cruised parallel to the river bank which was prettily fringed with dangly green leaves and dark brown tree roots. I sat and watched and I tried hard to tattoo all of this into my memory so that I could bank it for a time that I needed to smile.

Getting our son to come out of the river was a difficult task. Each time we sang out that it was time to go he would swim back to the boulders on the other side of the river and he would sweetly beg for more time. He was also trying to hang onto this day. We promised him that we would come back one day.

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 The Promised Land is located on Australia's East Coast.

All photographs were taken using an iphone 5.

Please email me if you would like to use my images.