Chapter 43
Two weeks on, and the flood was abating, slipping slowly off Donnalee’s ruined fields. The place should be alive and bustling with the harvest by now. Instead an eerie peace ruled, disturbed only by the swans’ haunting cries, and the night-time chorus of contented frogs.
Ric was replacing flood-flattened fencing along the river, enjoying the sunshine, all the while keeping an ear out for the sound of a motor. The bridge was still out, so Professor Mark Hill from Bush Heritage was coming by boat. It was lunchtime when he finally arrived, a middle-aged man with unruly grey hair poking out from under his hat, carrying a briefcase. He moored expertly at the makeshift jetty halfway up the laneway. It would be weeks before the river ran within its banks again.
Ric shook hands with
