Sunday Tree and Tunnel Fun

We had Hannah visit for the day today, Hannah who is Eloise's oldest and most faithful friend. They have stuck with each other through thick and thin and long and short from Nursery to school.

They are both single kids and have over the years had something of a combustible relationship, both being strong-willed, knowing their own minds, and not afraid of shall we say putting forward their views without let or hindrance.

Hannah dropped around about ten o'clock and being with us all day knew the score. The score being that certain tasks had to be completed before free time could be had. So she didn't mind when she found out that the dog had to be walked. I think she enjoys it actually.

Today we walked up the old disused railway track at Lanita Road near Camp Mountain. We started on the flat and veered up the hill on the right to loop back. Halfway up the hill a tree had fallen across the track, presumably after a recent storm.

Such an obstacle was no mere barrier to the little explorers. It was an opportunity for dangerous death defying devilry.

I spent a resigned half hour in the thirty degree heat, my forearms prickling with sweat as they worked their way up and down the tree seeing how far they could get walking and shuffling along. There was a puddle in the ditch by the side of the path, which was instantly promoted to a creek and then even to a lake, and this presented serious psychological difficulties which had to be surmounted.

Later, challenging the psychological boundaries, we visited a mysterious tunnel which disappears into the side of the hill and which we haven't dared venture far into. It's hewn from the rock and for me is a slight stoop in height but comfortable, if narrow, in width. It's dark, and as tunnels disappearing into hillsides often are for anyone who's read the Wierdstone, scary in a "who knows what could be down there" kind of way.

Hannah launched herself without a care in the world and marched down to the end, an embarrassing ten metres or so in, oblivious to the moths and the bats that started to flap around us.

"It's not scary," she stated. "I don't understand what there is to be scared of."

It bloody was scary. Bats are scary. Tunnels are scary.