Yesterday, and Tomorrow

Low speed, lots of corners and the road now is tar-sealed. The ratatat of corrugations and dust are yesterday.
Driving through shade and covered by ferns and native trees provide a break from all day sun. Almost at the destination and my phone sounds an alert. Nowhere to stop on this narrow road. I guess. Another Covid alert? More likely a third tsunami warning. Tsunamis are waves that come in waves. But we are safe. Locked in a valley, yes, but at an altitude now of at least 80 metres. I park the car. A solitary car under the trees the same as all the previous late summer visits. Holiday folk have gone.

I check my phone – these days we can get reception in the valley. A tsunami alert. Somewhere a tsunami may have been and gone.
Simple back pack, a quickly scratched together picnic. Make-do picnics offer surprises. Cheese, rye biscuits, eggs, dried fruit – real fruit and baking. Bottle of water.
Summer crowds have left a well-worn track. Storms have left a well-torn beach, devoid of sand. Where once was sand, comfortable to sit on, are river boulders. A search for the ideal blend of bum and boulders, a wriggle and now seated, let the picnic commence.
There is light chatter of water from the river. The buzz of late summer cicadas. Welcome Swallows swoop in mysterious aerodynamics. All day, every day is picnic time for the Welcome Swallows skimming on the water surface for insects we don’t see.
No traffic, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, chain saws, or car alarms. The peace of regenerating native forest. A nearby cliff face an abstract artwork of colourful, embedded minerals. Grey, boulders, trees in shades of green, blue sky, always-changing white cloud. Let the picnic commence.

Picnic ate. Always more food than needed. Post prandial dawdle away from the tinkle of the river and a walk around the forest track. Shade, silence. A cry of alarm – a bird I can’t identify. Nearby freshwater stream, a good flow after recent rain and its course long stabilised with well established trees. A a rich green moss never seen in the sunlit areas, borders the track.
Silence. A tapestry of time as lichen inches its way up a tree trunk. Should that be ‘centimetering’ its way? Easy for us old fellows to get behind.