Thanks for the reviews, guys! I am glad you're finding it as interesting to read as I am to write. Hopefully this chapter lives up to the other two. I've also corrected a couple of minor things in the first two chapters. Enjoy and keep on reviewing!

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Chapter 3

The bridge was beautifully built. The logs that made up the surface had obviously been carefully selected and cut so they were all the same, making for a comfortable place to tread. There was a handrail, and even the pegs holding it all together were immaculately done. I stood running my hands over the joints, marveling at the craftsmanship as everyone began talking at once.

Obviously we spoke most about the Hermit, how the stories had to be true after all, and how long he must have lived down here to have built such a bridge. He'd built it to last and a good hundred years later it was still here and in perfect condition.

Typically Homer's arrogance burst forth from him oathing to never call Ellie stubborn again. Actually "stupid, dumb obstinate slag heap" were his exact words. Ellie grinned – all a part of their brother-sister-they-never-had relationship.

Kevin began taking credit for keeping us at it until we reached this point and then commented the bridge resembled his own woodwork attempts both of which everyone ignored.

We were so pumped, so excited and so full of adrenaline by our find we left the bridge and practically bounced along the overgrown but clear path that led away from the bridge and down into Hell.

The girls discussed the Hermit and what he would have survived on, Ellie brought up the walking stick my friend Andy had found a couple of years back. He still had it, I knew, in his room and it did sterling service as a doorstop and sometimes a paper-weight.

We chattered like magpies all the way, the path taking us around, and once between Satan's steps forming what was almost a tunnel between the last and second last of the rocks. It wove down the hill, between thick trees and bush land until at last we found ourselves at the bottom.

We came out to a clearing that was a little bigger than the Wirrawee Hockey Field which was at the show grounds and then realised we had done it. In the one day we'd done what nobody else in living memory had done. We'd successfully climbed into Hell.

The clearing wasn't man made so of course had trees scattered through it. The ground was covered with the usual debris of the bush and a few stones. The last of the sunlight filtered through the light tree canopy, gold beams highlighting various areas of the ground. The creek was at the western edge, near the wall of Hell and was wider and slower moving.

We all looked at each other, grinning like idiots.

"This is freaking awesome!" Kevin said, summing up what everyone thought. That sentence broke the spell and we all immediately started talking again as we set up camp. Kevin and Homer went off for firewood, Robyn and Fi started unpacking the first tent.

"Don't worry about that for now," Ellie suggested to them as she cleared an area for the fire and began setting up some stones in a neat circle to contain it, "We've only got a couple and its warm enough – lets just set up the flies for now and worry about tents tomorrow.

Fi and Robyn looked around at the clearing which was rapidly getting dark now the sunshine was gone and agreed. Kevin was back and had a fire going in a couple of minutes so Ellie and I got stuck into the cooking for our first night.

I had already got the food out, something simple and easy to start us off – nobody was in the mood to do a lot of cooking, least of all me so I wandered over to the fire with a few yellow packets, a saucepan and the plastic bowls we'd shoved into my pack.

Ellie poured water in from our carry-in supply and we had just got it settled over the fire as Fi wandered up. We were ripping open the packets and upending them straight into the pot when she asked;

"What are we having?"

"Two minute noodles for now. We'll cook some meat later, but I'm too hungry to wait." Ellie told her.

"What are two minute noodles?" Fi asked, I glanced at her face to see if she was pulling my leg but her expression was genuine. I grinned at Ellie.

"It's an awesome feeling," I said, "to realise you're about to change someone's life forever."

We stayed up so late that night. We sat around the fire, finished the noodles and began on a more serious meal of lamb chops and we talked. Gosh we talked, all seven of us talked for hours and hours. We talked about Hell, the hike, the drive, the preparation. Our families, how our younger siblings were all desperate to come. We talked about the show, school, Uni and we talked about Risdon. We talked about our futures, our pasts and everything in between. I don't think there was a subject we didn't talk about.

You know how it goes, something one person says sparks a memory or a funny story and off you go on another subject, usually completely off the original topic. We were up for hours. It must have been at least two in the morning before the party broke up and very shortly afterwards we were all snoring in our sleeping bags.

The next day we woke early, being outdoors we naturally rose with the sun but nobody got out of bed. I think Robyn and Fi slept again for a bit. It must have been around mid morning before anyone considered getting up and closer to lunch before we actually did.

For the most part we just lay around doing very little. The girls were good enough to get breakfast which more or less merged into brunch, then morning tea, lunch and we would have kept going I think, if it wasn't for Homer and eventually Ellie being energetic to actually do something.

I got stuck into All Quiet On The Western Front and wasn't particularly keen to do much. I worked so hard at school, at music and then at home in the restaurant it was an incredibly nice change to have permission – to give myself permission – to do absolutely nothing.

The day passed slowly and more or less peacefully as we passed it in ways that reflected our personalities I guess. Me with my book, Homer much more actively climbing and exploring, Ellie and Fi sitting by the creek talking and then Ellie joined Homer for a wander through the scrub later in the day, Robyn spent a lot of her time listening to music, Kevin and Corrie spent a lot of time talking together quietly and then began making out on the sleeping bag. The rest of us pretty much ignored one another and the two love birds. We were pretty chilled out.

The snake in Homer's sleeping bag was our excitement for the day, he found it when he returned there to have a rest in the evening, the snake must have decided it had found a nice warm possie for the night and was pretty mad about being turfed out.

We all found some energy then, as Robyn and Kevin lifted one end of the sleeping bag with sticks to pour the snake out the front. They did well at first but then dropped it and the snake came bursting out, fast and furious. We all ran for it, I bolted for a tree and climbed up in a burst of adrenalin and by the time we all stopped to look back for the others, the snake was long gone. Thank goodness.

We all double and triple checked our sleeping bags before we went to bed that night. The long day of doing nothing was exhausting and most of us passed out pretty quickly. We still hadn't bothered to put up a tent, the nights were warm enough even up here and the flies were still up forming a slanted ceiling which opened to the sky.

I was on the end, Robyn next to me, then Fi, Ellie, Homer, and Corrie and Kevin on the other end – all in a row like peas in a pod. I had hoped to be next to Ellie but she and Fi claimed the middle spots explaining they were least likely to wake up during the night and disturb everyone else.

I was looking at the sky, what little part of it I could see between our fly, the edges of Hell's impressive walls and the treetops. I could see millions of stars even in that small gap and was whiling away the time it took me to fall asleep by counting them. Ellie and Homer might have had sheep to count, being farmers kids but I was usually in front of a horror movie wondering why I couldn't get to sleep. Tonight there was no electricity, no TV so I was counting stars.

In that little gap there was at least eighteen thousand – the skies were so clear and the starts so much brighter up there – but many were really faint and I kept losing count.

At around midnight it was silent around me, the others breathing deeply and Homer had started to snore a little. I was almost asleep myself when I heard a noise. At first I wasn't conscious of hearing it, it had been so faint to begin with and I can only assume that was because the sheer walls of Hell blocked out the sound effectively but suddenly with a blast of noise aircraft shot overhead and just as quickly the sound of their engines was cut off again by our little canyon.

Robyn sat up, startled. She hadn't been so much asleep as I'd assumed.

"Just planes." I told her drowsily.

"It was pretty loud." She said, lying down again.

"Mm," I answered, a bit annoyed with them for waking me up again, "I guess it echoes more down here."

Maybe a minute later, another blast of aircraft over head. There were several waves this time, and Robyn and I both sat up to squint around the canvas to see if we could see them. But we couldn't, not without moving right out into the clearing for a better look and neither of us could be bothered.

"Eight," Robyn counted the waves of aircraft in a whisper.

"And say, ten planes each time… that's a lot of planes." I answered in a low voice. I could smell fumes from the fuel now. The planes had sounded really low and I guess the artificial smell was much more easily detected out here in the bush where the air was much clearer and pure.

"Wasn't the Air Force doing a big display at the Stratton Fireworks for Commem Day?" Robyn asked. I sat and thought for a moment.

"Yeah I think I remember something about that in the paper," I answered, "Doing aerial maneuvers and flying the flag over and stuff."

"They must be heading back to base." She answered with a sigh, shuffling around in her bag to get comfortable.

Before I could answer another eight waves began. We both counted them and wondered how the others could possibly sleep through the noise. There was silence for a while and we both must have drifted off to sleep then. Throughout the rest of the night more planes went over, wave after wave. I guess we slept through some but woke for others.

It never occurred to me then that we were hearing the big change, that life would never ever be the same again. It was just planes, a little out of the ordinary but nothing to get excited about. After a while things quietened down in the sky and the next I woke it was about eight in the morning and it was already getting warm.

"Did anyone else hear those planes last night?" Robyn asked as we all sat around the remains of our fire for breakfast.

"Yes," Ellie answered immediately, "I was up, I'd been to the toilet."

"They just never stopped," Robyn said, "Must have been hundreds." I just nodded in agreement, not that anyone was watching.

"There were six lots," Ellie corrected her, "Close together and really low. But I thought you all slept through it. Fi was the only one who said anything."

"Six lots?" Robyn stared at her incredulously, "There were dozens and dozens, all night long. And Fi was asleep. I thought you were, too. Lee and I were counting them but everyone else just snored away."

"God." Ellie breathed. And then; "I must have heard a different lot to you."

"I didn't hear anything." Kevin said, opening up his third Mars Bar for the day. Or maybe it was his second.

"It's probably the start of World War Three." I said without even the faintest inkling of how right I was. It was just one of those stupid comments – they type we all used to just come out with thinking we were really smart and funny for having said them. "We've probably been invaded and don't even know."

I blame the influence of too many war novels for that one, I'd only started All Quiet On The Western Front the day before which is why it was on the top of my mind, I guess.

"Yes," said Corrie from the comfort of her sleeping bag, "We're so cut off here. Anything could happen on the outside and we'd never hear about it."

As the talk drifted along this path and then on to a book we'd done for English about a girl who lived in a valley and was the only survivor of a nuclear explosion until another bloke showed up. I hadn't enjoyed the book much it was pretty stupid and the story line was pretty unbelievable to my mind.

And so the day meandered on and we all but forgot the planes. Once another plane went over in daylight, high and quiet so we didn't connect it with the ones from the night before. Homer went off to pan for gold in the creek, Kevin and Corrie went back to sleep and I got stuck into my book. It was a lazy day following a lazy day – and followed by another several lazy days.

A little while later Fi settled herself by the fire close to me and began brushing her long hair to get the snarls and tangles out that had built up overnight.

"I'm surprised nobody's parents have come looking for us just to check on us." She said conversationally.

"Oh I don't know, its only the second day, I imagine Robyn's dad will come abseiling over the cliff any minute now."

"Or my mother will have the SES out looking for us in helicopters." Fi added. I laughed and she said, "No, Im serious. She's such a worry wart."

"It's because she cares about you." I answered.

"I know, but she can be so overbearing sometimes. I often wonder if I'll ever be allowed to move out and have my own life. I can imagine being a fifty year old spinster still living at home being looked after by my mother like Miss Spencer." She said, remembering one of our odder teachers from Primary School.

"I always wondered how Miss Spencer got her degree. Her mother freaked out when she went to Stratton for two nights to take her dog in for an operation. Can you imagine if she had to leave to go to Uni for four years? Lucky she got her first teaching job back in Wirrawee." I said.

"Online degree." Fi answered smugly.

"Probably," I agreed, "It explains a lot."

"I'm going down to the creek to brush my teeth." She said suddenly, standing up. I noticed she'd changed into fresh clothes before turning back to my book. I nodded.

"Thanks for my PJ's Lee." She said. She hadn't worn them out of embarrassment, I knew.

"No problem."