 Fording the Arthur River / Tarkine wilderness |
 by Philip Game
Was that a distant howl, or simply the wind, or the cry of a hungry wombat or wallaby in the darkness of early morning?
The thylacine, the Tasmanian tiger, has been declared extinct: but many prefer to believe a few survive, and where else but deep in the forests of the Tarkine wilderness...
At three in the morning, you can believe almost anything. Back aching, limbs covered with cuts and scratches, fingernails black and a stomach rebelling against a diet of rice, pasta, lentils and pancakes. Fumble for headlamp torch, wriggle out of sleeping bag, manipulate recalcitrant zips and pull on boots. Stumble out into the darkened forest, first to collect the communal toilet kit bag then blunder across fallen logs and around wombat burrows to choose your open-air ‘washroom’.
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