I was just 17, thrown out of home and found myself living on a hippie commune. Self imposed exile I like to call it. Anyway, I fell in with a pretty cool and funky crew and we were all into the same thing: Bushwalking. One wet Saturday we were bored. I came up with the idea of doing some bushwalking in the forest. What the hell, got nothing' else to do so off we went, the three of us, me, my best mates at the time Dave and Darryl, whistling yahooing...okay, we didn't do that but we were happy to at least be outside and doing something.
No more than a half hour later we came to a fork in the track. We argued which way to go and I said, pointing to the left, "This Way, man, this way." We tossed the coin and took the left hander. Spooky bush this was. Dark, mysterious, and no birds, which I found odd. The track, if I remember correctly (I am going back over twenty years, mind you), was overgrown with bracken, lantana, small native trees sprouting, and wild introduced grass.
Around about this time, my bladder started whispering to me by saying: "Wee Wee Time!" I told the others to wait up on me as I quickly ducked into the bush to relief myself. I was standing there looking around me, checking out the dense forest when, out of bloody nowhere, this kid appeared, scaring the daylights out of me. He looked to be 12, very thin looking, blondish hair and the clothes he wore looked, well, outdated...that's the only word that just popped into my head...outdated. He wore shorts that were held up by braces, a dirty white shirt but no shoes.
He stood there for about one minute before turning his back on me and walking back into the bush. I shouted, while fumbling with my zipper, at him to hold up. My mates heard me shout and thought I was bitten by a snake (in the middle of winter?). They came running to see if I was okay, which I was of course but I told them about the lad I saw.
"How could there be a brat up here?" Asked Dave. I was confused so we headed back to town where Dave told everyone about me seeing some kid in the bush. An old fellow overheard and called me over. He asked to describe the boy so I did. The old fellow shook his head sadly and told me that what I saw was a ghost of a young boy who got lost up there back in the 30s. He was found dead but his wee spirit still hangs around. You know, I've seen that child three times over a period of six months