A beautiful pelican glides into view as I watch from the tranquil river bank. How strange it seems to me, this green brown waterway so far from the ocean.

In the river’s reflection I see another creature, a creature of dry, arid places. A desert dweller lurks here too in the most incongruous of realms; somewhere between reflection and imagination.

I am missing my ocean but the pelican is happy here in the backwaters of the River Murray; as long as he or she does not see the lurking scorpion.