A Soggy Adventure on Hortain Plains

The far-thinking mom Hyacinth had brought a raincoat for Janani. She was unceremoniously bundled into it while the rest of us decided to brave the ice cold rain and continue our walk to World’s End. Actually there was no choice about continuing, we had to go forward on a downhill track to World’s End (the smarter choice… which we being the smart folk we are ,took), or climb relentlessly uphill back the way we came (which was a no no).

So we pushed onwards in the pouring rain Hyacinth and I trying to share one umbrella to keep our handbags dry, our ID’s, phones and cameras being the most important things to safeguard. Finally I covered my camera and phone in Janani’s raincoat cover, gave my handbag and umbrella to Hyacinth and we kept walking. Hyacinth’s handbag was a huge ‘pan malla’ kind of thing and soaked up lots of rain like a sponge and probably weighted a ton! Poor Hyacinth looked like a desperado with our two handbags slung crosswise across her chest, carrying the umbrella and practically staggering along. She did have a large smile on her face though J Janani meanwhile happily splashed into all the puddles she could find.

We laughed at our original efforts to keep our shoes dry because pretty soon the stony little pathway turned into a gushing river with a strong enough current to unsettle us. Protecting our shoes was the least of our thoughts while we struggled knee high in water. The water was muddy too and we soon couldn’t see the pathway, just a rushing gurgling sucking rush of water which could have easily swept Janani (and all of us too) off our feet. Soon it became a battle to hang on to the rocks and grasses on the pathside and carefully ‘feel’ our way through the ‘rapids’. Anton and Janani both fell along the way and so did Hyacinth. Luckily no bones were broken. When crossing a stream with just a branch to use as a stepping stone, Hyacinth preferred to sit on the muddy stream bank and try to wade across… the stream was too deep though and she was compelled to climb on the branch and get across to the other side.

We felt that we had been battling through the rapids for hours and were cold and shivery and tired and hungry! We sat on some rocks and delved into our bags for our biscuits and guess what????? They were not in polythene packs anymore! They were in soggy newspaper.. yucks!! How unappetizing! None of us wanted them. We did eat some of the nuts though, peeling way the soggy newspaper off them. I can’t imagine that we actually did that when I think back!

Janani was such a good little sport. She was quite happy with the lovely world (albeit rather wet world) around her, singing her Barbie songs despite the cold and the long walk. She quite enjoyed herself and even the rocky pathway became an adventure where she had to find the best path and the places that didn’t seem to be too deep and to maintain her footing. She happily skipped from stone to stone her tiny little hand clasped in mine. The couple of times she lost her footing didn’t make her cry as I feared it would. She just held on and looked carefully for the next safe secure rock on which to place her foot.

We walked through more mountains, and through forest land. Through open prairies through which gushed little steams and where little lakes were now swollen with rain water. We walked through rocky terrain where the path was still rocky and hewn into pink streaky rock and then finally we came to World’s End!