Signs & Wonders

Another memorable experience from my recent time away with the Huddleston lads in Buchan...

One afternoon we decided to go for a drive to explore the region beyond the park where we were staying. We had a local map and agreed to head towards the Basin Creek Falls, situated alongside the Snowy River.

The map indicated that in order to get to the Falls car park and walking trail we’d need to travel along an unsealed road for a few km’s (road was suitable for tourist sightseeing and no 4WD’s necessary).

As we wound our way towards the Falls we enjoyed spectacular views of the Snowy River from a distance. We soon came to a place where a “blank” wooden sign was located on the side of the road. There were no other vehicles in the vicinity and the unsealed road continued on ahead, down a hill with a reasonable slope.

What to do..? We agreed not to stop at the sign and to proceed cautiously ahead down the road, hopeful of arriving at the Basin Creek Falls car park and walking track shortly. As we proceeded beyond the sign I could see from my rearview mirror some wording on the reverse side of the sign. You can probably guess what it said. It said; Basin Creek falls. Go figure?!

By now we had pretty much gone past the point of no return. The road was narrow, winding, unstable and uneven – not exactly ideal for our trusty Mitsubishi Starwagon!

Slowly moving forward (and downhill) I looked for a suitable place to turn around our van. This was getting more challenging and after another 50 meters or so we could see water flowing steadily across the road. Beyond the water (how deep was it?), was a rather steep embankment. I knew it would be foolish to attempt to drive over this in our van.

It was at this point that the boys worked it out (I thought it best to wait and see if they would discover for themselves what I had realised only a few minutes earlier). This track was clearly not the way to the Falls. Someone must have thought they’d play a prank and had chosen to remove the sign at top of the hill and turn it around – not really funny and potentially dangerous for other unsuspecting drivers.

Thankfully I was able to turn the van around and make the return journey slowly back up and along the road we had been driving along. We arrived safely at the sign and parked on the side of the road. As we walked over to the sign I asked Scott to give me hand to see if we could lift it out, turn it around and place it back in the ground – the right way around. It fitted perfectly!

As we looked further beyond the sign we could see a small walking track that headed down the side of the hill towards the Snowy River. We agreed to follow the track. The initial few minutes of our hike made for some fascinating discussion about what we had just experienced. A number of major insights surfaced as we walked and talked together.

1) It was wrong of someone to have turned the sign around and it could have put other people and their vehicles at risk of injury and damage. We concluded that there are people in this world who choose to do the wrong thing, even if it means placing others in danger.
2) We chose to do something that was right. We simply turned the sign around and positioned it in it’s correct place.
3) Life has it’s fair share of signs and paths to follow. Some paths are safer than others. There will be times when we will be confronted with choices that can lead us in different directions. Hopefully we will make the right choices.

We eventually arrived at the Basin Creek Falls. It was worth the journey. We also enjoyed standing at the edge of the Snowy River and looking out across some truly majestic scenery.

It was soon time to head back along the path, up the hill to our van. About half way up we came across two people who were coming our way, down the hill towards the Falls. We greeted them and proceeded along the path to our van. Meeting this couple served to remind us of our earlier encounter with the sign. The boys were able to reflect a few more in-the-moment insights…”It’s good that we turned that sign around…it helped those people find the right path…just imagine what might have happened to anyone else out here if the sign hadn’t been turned the right way around.”

Outdoor education...way to go!