TRAVERSE Issue 46 - February 2025 | Page 89

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different eyes , some of it reappearing through a haze of once youthful alcohol blurred vision . Edinburgh hadn ’ t really changed from twenty years ago , perhaps a little more polished , a little more touristic , but still the same fantastic city . What lay beyond the city walls did feel vastly different , a new world , which begged to be explored .
We rode north across the Firth of Forth , it made me giggle as I imaged my husband saying something similar after too many of the aforementioned whiskies . He always seems to develop a speech impediment after the brown liquor .
We reached a city that had a familiar name yet was as alien , and far removed from our Western Australian capital city as could be . Perth , was the point where we headed east , following the coast to Aberdeen , and then the stones began .
My partner , Leigh , has had this fascination with old stuff since he was a kid , imagining himself as Indianna Jones . For God ’ s sake , he ’ s not even Howard Carter , no , he ’ s more like that little Baldrick bloke from Blackadder who now runs around fields , with other frumpy looking men getting excited about a chunk of rock that once held up a teapot .
We ’ d reached a place called Kinkell Church , of course it was in ruins , yet something felt special about this place . A small stone church that sat beside a turf manufacturing business . The building , despite not having a roof , was in surprisingly good condition , as was the surrounding graveyard . Something just felt right about the place , and then something caught my eye .
Amongst the Christian ritual stones , graves , and crosses was something more simplistic yet much more beautiful . Circles , lines , and some sort of animal . Pictographs that would become the norm over the
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