Page 76 of Where the Wattles Bloom

Although the mere thought of that was like a sharp little stone inside his boot.

Still, he enjoyed her company as they bumped along. She laughed as he regaled her with stories of falling into troughs and his first ever encounter with a ram. And when they reached their final destination, her breathy, ‘Ohhh,’ made him smile.

It was exactly how he always felt when he came here. It wasn’t large, certainly not in comparison to some of Blairgowrie’s water assets—maybe a hundred metres in circumference—but it was a sight to behold.

It was special.

This time of day in particular, with the soft streaks of late afternoon sun poking through the trees, bathing everything in a rosy gold.

Lachlan pulled the vehicle to a stop, letting the engine idle. Nearby corellas lapping at the edge of the water took off in noisy, indignant flight at the rude interruption, speckling the vast blue curve in white.

‘Welcome to my favourite spot on Blairgowrie.’

‘Lachy,’ she said, looking at him then back at the view, her voice husky with delight. ‘This is gorgeous.’

‘It is.’

He grinned as he slowly drove the vehicle to the southern end, parking it beside an elevated wooden platform that projected out a few metres over the water. It had been here for as long as he could remember. Longer than even Reggie had been around, apparently.

Switching off the engine, he said, ‘Come on.’

He grabbed the chairs and the picnic basket from the back, setting them up on the aged planks.

‘How did this get here?’ she asked as she walked to the edge of the platform and stared across the billabong.

Thanks to the profusion of waterlogged roots from trees that had sprung up around the edge over many generations and an accumulation of dead leaf litter on the bottom, the water looked tea coloured, but was actually clear.

The two other dams they’d passed on the property had been man-made and a muddy brown, completely barren of vegetation, which made this look like an oasis in comparison. Several lily pads floating on the surface supported this illusion, their white flowers attracting the mad flutter of dragonflies.

‘Hydrologists reckon it used to be a loop in the river until it changed course a couple of hundred years ago.’

‘There’s a river near here?’

He chuckled. ‘Not anymore, no. Not on Blairgowrie. It cuts through the southern end of the property next door. But when it rains a lot, as it has these past few years, water travels back through the system via smaller creeks and gullies to here.’

Lachlan stood beside her and pointed to the deep gashes in the ground that snaked out haphazardly from the billabong perimeter, ruining the otherwise almost perfectly circular shape. They furrowed through the scrubby landscape until they either petered out or disappeared from sight.

‘Does it ever dry up?’

‘Sure, during a drought. Everything dries up. But there’s still a lot of water lying around in creek beds and gullies right now and favourable forecasts for late spring rain, so there’s no danger of it happening any time soon.’

‘I was surprised how green it was out here,’ she said as she slowly perused the scene in front of her. ‘I thought the further out we got, the more barren the landscape would become, but there are so many trees and all that tufty grass—’ She pointed to the tussocks they’d driven over. ‘Everywhere.’

‘That’s Mitchell grass. The consistent rain we’ve had these past few years has seen it run wild, which means there’s plenty for the sheep to graze on.’

‘Sheep like it?’

‘Sheep love it.’ He chuckled. ‘And the less we have to supplement them, the better for our bottom line.’

‘Speaking of sheep.’ She turned to face him. ‘Did I see that Reggie made up some cold lamb and pickle sandwiches?’ She tipped her chin at the basket that Lachlan had placed between the two chairs.

‘You sure did. And a thermos of tea.’

She sighed blissfully. ‘Bless her cotton socks.’

They sat then, and Lachlan passed over the thermos—the old tartan one with the white plastic cup lid that Reggie had bought brand new in the seventies and refused to part with. Rowena made her tea while he dug out the sandwiches.

‘It’s so peaceful here,’ she murmured as she eased back in the chair, blew on her tea and took a sip.