hop along, [R]

[Corowa]

The wallaby sat on the rough outcrop of rocks. His ears twitched and he suddenly lifted his head from the snowgrass. For a moment, Wimbirr stood absolutely still, and then he hopped down to a lower shelf of rock, which was sheltered by a stand of snowgums. Wimbirr was very much alone in this open country of steep gullies and grassy flats. For earlier, the wind had carried the smell of men to him, and the wallaby was nervous.

Wimbirr was afraid of the stockmen and their dogs. Even now, the wallaby trembled when he remembered how the dog had chased him, its furious barking, and the whistle that had stopped it in its tracks. For the dog had heard the whistle and swung around, had vanished without a sound, into the stillness of the bush. Then suddenly, rain started to fall, and the wallaby looked towards the south, where the sky was black and thunderous. When the rain began to fall more heavily, Wimbirr took shelter beneath a narrow overhang of rock. There he stood and waited until the rain had stopped, his ears flickering nervously back and forth, at the sharp crack of lightning and low rumble of thunder.

Then as soon as it had come, the storm was over. From where he stood beneath the rocky outcrop, the wallaby shook the wetness from his grey fur, smoothed down a particularly damp patch with his paw. The rocks were slippery, and the steep slope more precipitous in the wet. But Wimbirr had been born in the rugged hills of the Brindle Bull, and he hopped easily up onto a high ledge. From here, the wallaby nibbled on the snowgrass that grew between the rocks, looking up every now and then to look down at the grassy flat beneath him. He was reassured that no dog could reach him here, for he was swifter and more nimble now than he had ever been, and surely, no dog could ever catch him now.

[Ehetere]

Almurta made her way over the rain soaked grass in search of shelter. Her stark white coat was soaked through and plastered to her skin. Her tail and underbelly were smattered with mud. Truly she was a miserable sight.

She had been making her way up at a leisurely pace from her winter haunts; and had been dozing in the shade of a tree when all of a sudden the heavens had opened and drenched her to the bone. She’d been quite out in the open and was making a hasty retreat towards an outcropping of rock that she remembered and thought could be adequate shelter - anything to get out of this wretched weather.

By the time she was crossing the grassy flat beneath the spur however, the rain had stopped. Typical in Almurta’s opinion. But she wasn’t stopping now. The outcropping would be good shelter, and besides, there would at least be dry ground there where she could dry off herself. She was going to need an awful lot of grooming to get all of this mud off her coat.

Almurta dragged herself up the torr, not really scenting her way or listening all that hard. She was too focused on reaching a dry ledge she had spotted from below. She was shivering by the time she reached it, and couldn’t help but long for the warm comforts of a mob.