The Deep Pool in the Dry

The water was clearly not for drinking, fetid and greening around the edges, the pool must have been stagnant for months. The main river couldn’t have reached this far for at least three or four weeks, and this pool must have been isolated from the main body of it long before that. The pool itself was deep, more like a well, but it’s source wasn’t beneath it. It was located on the lip of the river bank, a perfectly round, deep hole. It was about four metres across; it filled when the river was in flood, and managed to remain long after that changeable creature disappeared from this region in the dry. Since then, I've heard that it has never dried up completely, as long as history can remember at least.

The pool, and I will continue to insist on calling it a pool if only for lack of a better word, was the only water in evidence for miles and yet there were no animals near it. That isn’t to say there were no animals nearby, but on a hot day in the dry you would expect to find at least a few desperate creatures to be lurking in the shade of the trees next to the pool. But there were none, not even blow flies or any other insects, there were no animals within, at least, two hundred metres of the pool. I suppose that should have tipped me off but, I was thirsty.

I quickly gathered a collection of stones and made a small rock circle and made a neat pile of little twigs in the centre of the circle, I piled a handful of dried grass and leaves on top of the twigs and pulled out my flint. I was thirsty, not stupid. I’m well aware that untreated water could carry disease and all sorts of nasty bugs that could have me retching my insides outward for weeks, or worse. When my little fire was strong enough I unhooked my billy from the side of my pack, wandered over to the pool and dipped it in, pulling up enough water to fill my water bottle. It took years to boil, at least it seemed that way to me.

I had finished the last of the water I brought with me the morning before; twenty four hours without water in the dry season is about as long as you can go before your body starts to slowly shut down. Another twenty four and it abandons the slow shutdown procedure and by the end of the third day you become lunch for birds. Some don’t last so long. A very few last longer. My vision had already started to get wobbly earlier that day and I wasn’t exactly keen to go another day without water, so I waited for the water to boil. Then I poured it into my water flask and fetched some more water from the pool while I waited for the first batch to cool enough for me to drink. Warm water is never ideal in thirty-eight degree heat, but dehydration in the desert is deadly.

Why was I in the desert in the first place? That is both a long and an extremely short story in itself. The long version involves a dissertation on historical references (some by surprisingly credible sources) to the Kianpraty, a large swamp (or river, or waterhole) dwelling, mythical monster from Aboriginal legend. In short, I was hunting a bunyip.