Southern Faeries

The Discovery: Chapter 1

Emily is a sprite 10 year old girl, interested in nature and enjoys watching the animals and birds near her home in rural Eastern Victoria. She was walking along the tracks near her home 10km north of Omeo Victoria, about 500 metres from her house. when she spotted what she thought was a large butterfly with beautiful multi-coloured gossamer wings.

“What is that?” she thought as she began to move closer through the undergrowth towards the insect. She had never seen an insect that big, the dragon flies didn’t even come close. Was it a bird or some unknown creature, for some people had been up last week looking for a Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) spotted some weeks before at the forest end of Thompson’s Farm by Mr. Thompson himself. As she grew closer the form of the butterfly changed, she could still see the beautiful wings but the body seemed to have some legs coming out the bottom of it and was a silvery colour and made a humming noise of a high pitch like a high minor C. Another thing strange about the insect was how it moved. Emily had learnt a lot by observation about how butterflies move erratically in a flight path designed to make capture by birds, like the magpie difficult, but this one merely moved in a straight line with occasional variations to avoid trees and ferns.

She lost sight of it after a turn in the gully and started off in a trot after the strange creature but, she could here her mother calling so she gave up the chase and made her way home, for it was near dinner time and Mum would be cross if she stayed out past that time. Summer days are long and it is easy to loose track of time, especially when you are 10 years old, the only child for miles in a wilderness untouched by man for at least a hundred years

Emily's Dad is Park Ranger David Delmage, Manager of thousands and thousands of hectares of pristine southern Australian Wilderness, safe from logging and tourists, well, most tourists. The whole area is designated a “remote area”, which means aircraft must fly above 5,000 ft. and carry a beacon in case of an unfortunate problem like engine failure.