Set deep in the heart of rural Australia during the era of Gough Whitlam, pub brawls and flared jeans, start reading GUNNAWAH below!

Adelaide Hoffman tried to remember a time when running by the river brought her joy, but as hard as she tried, nothing came to mind. She ran in a straight line, the whites of her eyes flashing, left, right, left again, so hard to see in the murky dawn light. The main bridge over the river into town only took her a minute to cross. She glanced quickly over her shoulder in the semi-darkness, dirty blonde strands stuck to her face, her feet thudding in time with her frantic breath.

Two signs sat stacked at the end of the bridge as it dribbled into town. Welcome To New South Wales, the first one shouted to anybody crossing the Murray River who didn’t understand the border between Victoria and New South Wales or where the hell the bridge they were on was taking them.

The second sign sat slightly back, smaller, almost apologetic; Gunnawah. Pop: 989. The shire mayor had confidently announced he planned to get it over the 1000 mark before the end of 1974. But that had been last week at the lawn bowls club on New Year’s Eve, and nobody ever trusted what happened at the bowlo on New Year’s Eve.

Once over the bridge, Adelaide slowed her stride. Saddleback Lagoon sat only a short distance away, a misshapen billabong beside the river with still water so deep they said nobody had ever seen the bottom, not that anybody would want to with the bottom filled with possum carcasses and Murray cod shit.

‘There’s cod down there so fricken big they could swallow you whole, Adelaide,’ her older brother had told her once and she’d laughed and pushed him off his dirt-bike.

The sky rim glowed lemon with the promise of the rising sun and the crackling heat of a Riverina day. At the water’s edge, the ground vibrated with the thud of approaching feet. Tadpoles mouthed at the water’s glossed lid where her moving shadow cast a shade across the surface. Huff-thud, huff-thud.

Bloated air filled with the sharp tannin scent of soaking eucalyptus leaves. Clumps of white cockatoos watched from distant gum boughs, spread like dandruff through the limbs. From far off in the distance, a semi-trailer ground down through its gears.

Skidding to a stop beside the lagoon, Adelaide leaned down at the water’s edge, cupping her hands, splashing at her face. She lifted her head. Shit, was she late? Pivoting back toward the road, breathing in, breathing out, she ran. White shoes crackling on the crushed granite path, jumping puddles with well-worn precision, she ran along the gravel trimming the road flowing from the bridge, headed straight north into town.
She ran.