Hawkesbury River

PJ's bream, freaking out, we tossed it back. Healthy spider's webs dot the grasses like tall ship's rigging, plenty to feast on.


Thanks to the great Polkinghorne family, PJ and I got to spend three whole days up at the Hawkesbury, lazing by the river, relaxing on the sunny verandah and walking along the mangroves, investigating the wondrous swamps. The hardest part was leaving. 3 days of relative silence, fires at night and just the sounds of the wind in the trees, the birds, the occasional motorboat, and at night the possums fighting. So beautiful and peaceful, such a place.
On the first evening there, I was doing some yoga on the porch and heard some strange baby crying, then laughing, coming from right next to me. I was alone in the house, and got so frightened, I just froze. It seemed to be coming from the old metal trunk I was next to. I reconciled myself to the fact that it was haunted, and so my suspicions of ghosts were true.
When PJ came back from fishing I told him what had happened, sounding like a crazy person, and of course he opened the trunk and found an electronic baby doll.
Gosh I was relieved.
We went for a walk on Sunday through a swamp that I had never crossed before. We came to a barge on the river, that we could board, and we sat in the sun and ate our picnic. It was divine.
The only troubling thing was the mosquitoes, I have never seen such voracious insects. Besides that, seeing the new developments occurring along the river, gradually encroaching on the land, every year a little more...