Watery Wednesday ~ Water in the Desert or Aged Idiocy

Im the desert country it can rain all night playing music on

the tin roof but after an hour or two, all that is left of the

downpour is a puddle on the road.

The sandy ground is already drying off and paling in colour.

My Nemesis, after another night of rain, I came a cropper at

this inconspicuous little sheet of water. It had gathered in a

roadside ditch I needed to cross to the patch of Sturt Desert

Peas on the other side. The water was too deep to my being

willing to immerse my leather shoes in, too wide to jump, hmm

what now? No wood handy to bridge it, aha!, a sizeable rock

half submerged in the sticky mud, that will have to do. After

some juggling of camera and yanking at rock, I had my prize

without being plastered in mud. A judicious throw near the

other side where the water was shallower and within my range.

The result was not perfect but the way around the water seemed

worse. The bank on the other side looked firm enough, I gathered

my forces, put my best foot forward and leapt . . . I had intended

to barely touch the stone when, with a sucking sound the rock

sank. Pitching forward, yours truly slammed into the muddy bank

on hands and knees. When I extricated myself from this sticky

situation and shakily surveyed the damage, it seemed not too bad.

The camera had survived almost unscathed and I? Well I did look

like the monster from the deep, jacket, trousers and gloved hand

liberally caked with mud, both shoes full of water but no less

determined to go after my photographic quarry than before. I

slipped and slid up the bank, crossed the road and walking on a

couple of pounds of mud stuck to my shoes soon discovered the

flat earth I was behaving more like a mixture of an ice rink and

quicksand and pulling my feet away from under me.

I saw our trusty red UTE come my way and by ESP my darling

daughter to my rescue.

I seemed to be all in one piece. Only later at dinner the swellings

and bruises started to appear. In the heat of the moment I had not

noticed a couple of rocks on the bank, that added to very thin

blood due to medication did the rest. Weighing up options: driving

to the nearest hospital (a few hundred miles away), not an option

with flooded creeks. The airstrip too soft for the flying doctor to

land and the helicopter had left before the storm broke. Ah well,

had to rely on self help again and here I am to tell the tale.

Go swim the sea or submerge in a puddle but visit 2sweetnsaxy

and join in this very wet meme. Just click on the Logo.