Have you ever been lost ? Some feel lost, a psychological thing. We lack direction.....perhaps we're depressed. We get up, we go to work, we come home, we go to bed, we go to work. To me that sounds like the worst kind of "lost." Now that you're thinking about it that's not what I'm talking about at all.
Many of us have been lost in the city...........physically that is. Not so bad......just ask someone the way. Now I think about it that's all you need to do when you're lost psychologically, hence the industry of counselling or the existence of really good, non-judgemental friends......but back to the point at hand.
How many of us have been driving from point to point. We get ourselves on autopilot, drive quite carefully but suddenly "wake up" wondering where the hell we are, particularly if the route is often travelled. A weird feeling.
Just to the east of us about fifteen minutes away is an area known as Vivian Forest. Several thousand acres of bush, creeks, mixed woodland, the odd lake. The dogs love it! Horse riders love it. Deer love it. It's sufficiently big to be never busy but during the week virtually deserted....by people that is......one of the many advantages of being retired.
I go there quite often. Sam loves to run free, charge through the creeks, swim in the lake, get indescribably filthy, in other words......be a dog. She knows that this forest is for playing not working.......how do they know these things? I thought I knew it well. There are a few trails but not many as to be helpful. They do not criss cross each other. There are no signs and no one to ask the way.
I was there a couple of weeks ago. No parked cars, no horses, a pretty gloomy day threatening rain. I took Sam's collar off so as she wouldn't get hung up anywhere, grabbed my walking stick and set off down our usual trail down towards the lake. I was dressed for the day including boots and my hunting jacket but no phone and no GPS. Sam headed straight for the water and made like a dog while I sat on a stump and watched her enjoy herself. Eventually she came back to me, looked at me quizically saying "OK now what?
We set off down a well worn trail we'd been on a hundred times. The quiet was all pervading. The odd bird calling, a chipmunk in a conversation with another chipmunk. The sound of Sam either crashing through the underbrush or snuffling around in the ferns.
Remember the autopilot thing? I walked for over an hour on autopilot. Of course I didn't know it at the time. Your mind wanders as you wander. You twist and turn not knowing that you're twisting and turning, sometimes on a trail, sometimes not. Sam's happy. She doesn't even care where she is other than she's in the bush and it's fun!
Suddenly you wake up. I can't describe it any other way. If you've done it in your car then you know exactly what I mean. Nothing looks familiar and there's a wire fence on my left. I've never even seen a fence in the forest. What the bloody hell? Whoa.....now what. Use the brain that God gave you. Try and mentally back track. Can't do that I've been on autopilot for almost an hour after looking at my watch. The clocks haven't "fallen back" yet so there's plenty of daylight. If there's a fence it must be one of the boundaries of the forest. Simple.....climb over the fence! Bound to find something or someone and determine where we are. Too simple and could end up walking for hours, after all we did have to get back to the Jeep.
What side of a tree does the moss grow? Damned if I could remember. Is there any high ground nearby? Maybe we can see where we are. No luck there. Can I see the sun? Although it was cloudy I could see the faint gow of the sun. Brilliant, now figure things out. Sam now is sitting looking at me. "You're no bloody good" I say to her "if you were truly smart you could lead us out of here." She cocks her head and picks up a stick. "You've got to be kidding."
I glance at the sun again. If it's over there this fence is running east/west, that puts me at the North end of the forest which means I need to head South but it'll be tough to stay on course unless we cut a trail. We head off, man and dog very conscious of not walking in a circle. Every now and again I blazed a tree so if we went in a circle we'd know it eventually. After about half an hour we came to a small creek which generally seemed to meander in the direction we needed to go. It had to drain into the lake and hopefully that wasn't wishful thinking.
Sam is six years old now and I've had her since she was seven weeks old. I've sailed with her, we've competed succesfully in Hunt Tests and we've hunted together. She's smarter than most but more importantly I know her mannerisms. It dawned on me that she knew where she was, if not that she certainly knew where we were going. I had to keep her moving forward of me as though she was quartering. She knows the word "car" so I kept repeating it. Sure enough within another half hour she cut the trail between the lake and the parking lot after having had to cross the creek. Within ten minutes I was drying her down by the Jeep the sun slowly setting into the West. Another half hour or so it would've been dark.
The following day I accessed Google Earth on the computer and tried to figure out where we had gone. I was correct about the fence. It ran east west across the north end of the forest. We were lucky we hadn't climbed over as there wasn't too much to the north.
Next time I either focus or take the GPS both are better than relying on the dog to get us home but I did and we did.
