‘So long as you don’t start a bushfire.’ She smiled. ‘Luke thinks the one where you’re heading today probably got away from a boatie. You’d think the country would be too green but it still burns. Of course the grass shoots again immediately this early, but Luke worries about the little birds. The wrens and the finches and the like. It’s nesting season for them now and they build in low bushes and shrubs – and they burn up in fires, you see.’

‘Ah.’ Connor nodded. ‘I remember you said he was keen on birds.’

‘Oh yes. He can name them all. He does the talks for the slide shows when the camp’s full, and he takes the twitchers along the river walk in the early mornings. He keeps records for Birding Australia too. We all make notes of the birds that come to the basin for him. If he keeps up his studies he’ll be a professor of ornithology one day – if there is such a thing.’

‘And Matt?’ Connor changed gears and quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘What’s his particular interest?’

‘Oh, engines, I think.’ Tilly mused. ‘He’s such a quiet man, you have to guess. But he knows the bush and he can fix anything. Binboona couldn’t do without him, Sophie says.’

‘And you, Tilly – do you plan on staying out here?’

They were coming up to the gate in the camp enclosure and he braked to a stop. She pulled at the stiff door latch and shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ He asked a lot of questions, she thought, lifting out her lunch and thermos. ‘Thanks for the lift. This’ll do me. I can hear them working from here. See you tonight.’ Lifting the thermos in salute she turned her back and climbed through the gate. The dust rose under her feet as she padded down the road and the noise of the receding vehicle mingled with the throaty snarl of the whipper snipper up ahead.