This afternoon I went exploring up the river, here in this mysterious, ancient landscape.
I had been up the river before: Ten years ago I was here with a lover and took a beautiful photograph of her, emerging from a chasm between two boulders on an island in the river. When I first saw the photograph on my computer screen, I knew that for me it was the perfect photograph. With that, I felt a huge relaxation, a feeling that I could put my camera down now, now that perfection had been realised.
Today I wanted to go back to the spot where that perfect photograph had been created – a little pilgrimage. I set off up the riverbank, squeezing between boulders and worming my way between clumps of elephant grass. The wide river is dotted with boulder-strewn islands and I set about visiting each in turn, wading through the fast flowing water, slithering around on submerged rocks and sometimes swimming. The water was only half of the challenge. On the islands I found myself clambering about on the large boulders, oftentimes resorting to my rusty rock climbing skills.
I visited every island in the river and I never found the place of the perfect photograph. I can only guess that the monsoon floods of a decade have shifted even these huge boulders. The place is no more. But though I didn’t achieve my goal, I had a beautiful adventure. And, if the truth be known, that is the sole purpose of a goal, the sole purpose of life.
