sand in order to see what he had been eating. At the edge of the river my knees disappeared in quicksand and I was able to add to the scientific knowledge about dingoes which says that they don’t bark — they don’t sink either.

That day we had a taste of how inaccessible, remote and tough the Genoa River can be. The river twisted and turned through the most in­credibly sharp rock walls and we had to cross and recross the river to find a path. At times we had to actually wade along the river between tower­ing rock precipices. Graeme was good at this and seemed to have an in­built affinity with quick sand. He could find even the smallest patch. At one stage as the rest of us struggled through dense scrub on the bank, Graeme strode into mid-stream and promptly sank up to the waist. His pack was gently pushing him further into the mire and the only way he could stay up was to lay his walking staff flat on the sand and crawl out. It was obvious that he needed help, but at this stage the remote Genoa valley was filled with the hysterical sobbing laughter of four hikers as one of their number struggled from clinging sand like the monster from the lagoon. Graeme took this injustice to heart and not long after found an incredibly clear fossil of a palm or fern. Unfortunately it was on a rock that weighed about eight pounds and he made us take turns in car­rying the thing. He who laughs last gets stoned.