Our day took and unexpected turn. It started as a gentle stroll through gently mossed woodland and ended

a lurching, dizzy test of willpower to make it back.

 
The morning had slipped quietly away so Dylan forwent his ritual coffee and we marched off on the Lake St Clair – Shadow Lake walk. Close to the river the air was damp and cool, every moss covered corner seemed a probably hiding place for a wee team of fairies or hobgoblins. We hopped across stepping stones and over fallen trees, and crept upwards towards daylight.

Almost two hours in we reached a prehistoric looking landscape of Buttongrass and swampy soil, and I noticed that Dylan was looking grey. His head had begun thumping in earnest when we turned the corner to see the spectacular Shadow Lake gleaming in the suddenly dazzling hot sun.

I ate a solitary lunch watching ants steal breadcrumbs as Dylan dozed in his hammock, he awoke little improved. Insisting on heading back, he shrugged it off as a little caffeine withdrawal; he would be fine with a espresso back at the visitors centre… two hours away.

 

Dylan’s progress became more and more ragged as the headache, after a brief gestation, emerged a full blown migraine, complete with nausea and faintness. I kept a chirpy dialogue of landmarks I didn’t feel or sometimes even recognise as we trudged downwards. In hindsight a running commentary on the familiarity of various rocks is not helpful to a throbbing cranium.

We met the river with relief and I left Dylan to trek the last couple of kiliometres to the Visitors’ Centre while I packed the tent. Alone, his migraine turned so savage he lost his lunch and it was luck alone that I didn’t find it as I followed behind.

When I found him at the cafe, coffee in hand, Dylan was the picture of rosy cheeked health. Who would have thought tinkering with your dopamine system in the form of a coffee a day could reap such havoc!