Barbara Hartmann King, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Barbara Hartmann King
Once an Inland Sea - more 11/6/2011 12:47:29 PM
Continuing with the Pony Club adventure at the Palm National Forest – I used this wonderful setting in my third novel, ‘The Tan People” as a lover’s retreat.
The children rode their ponies along theback roads from the Showground arena to the National Park, a new experience formany of the group. On arrival, the animals were unsaddled and tethered, and wesettled with our rugs and enjoyed the picnic lunch. The adults were talkingamong themselves as the children moved away to make their own fun. I turnedsharply as the curdling scream caught in the breeze, then another... andanother. I looked with alarm – the other mothers were smiling. This was my first time at The Palms National Park. The children were risking life and limbswinging on the vines, swishing though the air, dangling from the trees withgenerous walloping Tarzan screams – boys and girls, small and large, everysingle child, having the time of their lives until they were exhausted orperhaps it was me who was exhausted. I need not have worried. There was not a single injury. As light faded, it was time to saddle up forthe ride back to the Showgrounds with the reloading, both animals and childrenand then homeward bound – truck first followed by Mum and the boys along thedune-type sandy one-lane road – winding up to Mount Binga where we dwelled onthe tableland top of the hills all blissfully tired but happy.
I included this lovely wonder of nature inthe third novel of my Trilogy, bringing it to life as a lover’s retreat in thewilds of the Australian Bush, set in the hinterland of the fictional town ofBoonaroo in central Queensland (generally speaking, the Roma area).
