Feeling melancholy as I often tend to do, and so also feeling feeble about life’s daily demands

I decide if I’m not working, then I should be healthy at the very least

So given I live in central Otago, where the schist rock formations exist untouched and magnanimous

I was wise to jummy on my trustworthy mountain bike and follow the Roxburgh trails

I was soon hurtling down the track, soon marvelling at the asteroid like debris field surrounding me

Those Giant megaliths sitting proud on the slopes, tell a story of destruction many eons ago

And they sit frozen in time, a real life photograph, hologram, call it what you will

In my minds I recreate the movie of the toppling of these great “schist cities”

I rewind the boulders back up the slopes so they reassemble back into Ex-Cretaceous era skyscrapers

I feel better already in this debri rock existence, I could do this all day every day

I ditched the bike and go fossicking up the hills amateur palaeontology style – spade in hand

I find a silt bed in a mini cave , I scrape into the smooth perfectly formed silt sand

Low and behold a claw emerges , then the arm the body and the legs, and soon a head

I think I have found a giant rat going by the teeth – I had thought it was a bat at first

It must have died at least 5000 years ago maybe 15000, and still lying as he died crouching

Then later a chamois jumps off near me startled like a wild cat to a stranger

Next day back again, digging in under the big rocks again for new fossils

Then a possum suddenly bolts from the back dark hidden corner – what a fright that was!

I was lucky he didn’t jump on my face and scratch the hell out of me

No more fossils pop up and the rocks aren’t as plentiful in this new area further down the trail.

So tired so it’s a smart choice to jump in the neighboring Clutha river, once my nerves up.

Splashdown my overheated 42 year old body welcomes the coolant and freshness.

As I sit like a skittle in the water I swear I can feel something nibble my feet, too dark to tell.

The water seems to be flowing the wrong way, a surface effect from the channeling wind up the gorge ?

Clinging now to the jetty an eel friend swims up to me, yep I was right about the nibbled toe.

As I look at the gold rush excavations I try to think of the bustles and hardships faced all those years ago

So why can’t I face life’s travails with the same steadfastness? Modern life has ruined me? Intellectualism?

Well it’s time to jump on my trusty two wheeled, well geared modern stead an return feeling fine.

What an amazing beautiful time I had those two days in February ‘21 under blue sky at Doctors Point.