It was early and the sun beckoned. Chris and I decided to go for a long walk – back to the spot we had found most enchanting just a few days ago, before cyclone Marcia whirled in from the sea and over Yeppoon (up north), and the heavy rain swept across Brisbane. This time the ‘Time Gate’ was chained and locked but it was easy enough to step over so we did just that, and once again we were transported into a bygone age when Australia was a land of bush, dirt roads, stage-coaches and goldfields.

We found the abandoned Gaol and Assayer’s Office, the Palmist’s Hut, the General Store, the Bakery and the Farrier’s place – we even found the Goldfield School (although I would have called it ‘Goldsmiths’). The small settlement was muddy after the recent rain and the mosquitoes were pleased to meet us in the shade under the trees and the corrugated iron roofs of the buildings. Like the miners of yore, we wore no insect repellent and we were feasted upon, and perhaps moreso because our skin is still fair and tender.

At last, our curiosity satisfied (and now itching to leave), we opted to take a different way home. We guessed that the dirt road would lead eventually to a main road from the modern age but first we would walk through cattle country… Cows are really rather large – aren’t they? The herd was up ahead, some in the fields on either side of the track, and others actually on the road. A big cow called Rosie (she had a name tag attached to her left ear) showed no fear of the approaching strangers from a different time zone, in fact she was immensely interested and walked over to us and sniffed us.

“Hello Rosie!” I said in a friendly confident voice and I patted her cheek and nose.

Rosie put her nose in the palm of my hand and sniffed some more. We didn’t feel that she very enamoured with us but perhaps somebody, or something, else did… Suddenly we heard hooves galloping towards us. A big sprightly bull with long pointy horns came running along the field above the track. We looked at him and he at us. Each of us hesitated and halted while we all summed up the situation and decided upon a plan of action.

“Let’s go back Sally,” suggested Chris.

“No, let’s go forward,” I countered, “don’t look at him and let us walk away slowly.”

It’s quite hard to appear nonchalant when a big bull is chasing you. Never-the-less, we stuck to the plan and the bull lost interest – we didn’t turn around to check but we imagine that to be the case because we lived to tell the tale. Before long (in fact we walked rather briskly) we had passed an old farmstead and an area strewn with rusty old vehicles, and we reached another ‘Time Portal’ in the form of another cattle grid. Once across Chris and I saw a ute coming our way and I waved in a friendly and disarming fashion (lest it should be a disgruntled cattle farmer). The driver and his mate smiled back as they drove past. Relief.

Soon we were on the edge of housing estate. We swung our arms and enjoyed the scenery as we sauntered back to the main road. And when we arrived at Roland’s place, nearly three hours after we had set out, we enjoyed recounting our adventure, especially the most exciting bit…

Marcia is the category five (highest degree of severity) cyclone which crossed the coast at Yepoon (near Rockhampton, 660ks north of Brisbane) at eight o’clock this morning. Most people who live here would blame Marcia for the expected four hundred millimetres of rain falling currently over Brisbane; other people know that Marsha is only partially responsible…

“I see you brought the rain with you again Aunty Sally,” said my niece Sarah over the phone yesterday.

“You’ve done it again Sally,” laughed my big brother Bill over the phone this morning.

“Oh Sally,” my brother Henry admonished, “you always bring the rain, the floods and cyclones!”

Only two months ago (when there was a drought here and I was freezing in England) Roland had emailed with a photograph of his brown grass and begged me to do a rain-dance. A few days later he asked me stop but to date I haven’t mastered the art of stopping the rain. And yet again, as everyone points out, it rains for me by the bucket-loads. My apologies go to all those expecting floods or cyclone damage. In recompense I got wet and risked life and limb whilst taking photographs of the deluge at the bottom of Roland’s garden.

The meteorologists forecast another  three days of intermittent heavy rain but I’m working on it…

It was raining when Chris and I set off for our walk at seven in the morning but we didn’t mind – the rain was light like a refreshing shower that settles momentarily on your skin and disappears in the breeze before it has a chance to collect and stream. (Incidentally, the Australia government ought to pay me for coming over because I always bring the rain, sometimes too much, especially in the form of cyclones – there are two gathering force out at sea right now!) Anyway, Chris wanted to familiarise himself with the locale of our host so we trekked up the steep hill outside Roland’s house, as far as we could go until the road ran out; then we went down to the bottom and followed the road to the right, past beautiful houses with perfectly kept lawns and dogs behind fences to ward off the passers-by, until that road, too, ran out.

The sun came out and a rainbow boded well. We walked straight ahead to Stubbin Street and took a left, past a mansion in the Queenslander style, and past the two Alsatian dogs that lived there and let us know we were not wanted.

“Good boys, good boys,” I said with a certain amount of confidence considering we were safely on the other side of iron bars.

“Why did you say that?” Chris asked.

“To stop them from barking,” I explained.

“That won’t stop them,” he asserted.

The dogs became quiet and lost interest, letting us walk on in peace, and I felt very happy that I was now an experienced dog person who understood dog psychology. I wondered if Chris was in awe of my wisdom in dog matters. Hand-in-hand we continued, past more beautiful houses and gardens, to where the road ended with a red cone and a large cattle grid to bar the way ahead to all but the most hardy and inquisitive of walkers. We were curious and we wore stout trainers – we crossed the grid.

As it happens, the cattle grid was a ‘time gate’ (for lack of a better term), and within a few yards it seemed that we were in a bygone age. The tarmac ended in a round full stop like a helicopter pad and beyond that was grass and pristine bush land, and a dirt road. We entered the road about two-thirds of the way up the hillside. Where the road meandered down into the valley some cows, small in the distance, grazed in grassland not attached to a homestead, but if there were a farmhouse it would surely have come out of the nineteenth century. We needed to get back – we had been out for an hour and the others would have been awaiting our return – so we decided to go both up and down the road in equally short measure in order to satisfy our curiosity to some degree, with the intention of making another exploration in the near future.

“Look at that!” Chris said glancing to his right on the way down.

As you will see from the photographs we discovered an old “Cobb & Co.” siding complete with notice board and adverts for the gold-diggers from the eighteen-fifties. Indeed, a little farther on we found the signs for the gold-fields (we almost got gold-fever – I began to think of buying a gold pan!).

Roland seems to think that Chris and I had stumbled upon a special centre designed for modern day school children so that they can experience what it was like in the olden days. How disappointing – we thought we had walked through a time warp!