We walk then paddle upriver from the mouth of the Wooditch Margaret River. The wind blows up from the ocean as the river winds and curves. On one side is steep sandy hills with dune grasses; on the other are paperbark wetter lands. We paddle as far as the next bend in the river, but don’t go ashore. The place is old, transformative, full.

Isn’t it convenient that the soapbush grows, all thick and white-flowered, by the water’s edge?—be it at Noble Falls by Woorooloo Brook, the upper reaches of the Swan, or here on the Bilya Maadjit Murray River in Dwellingup (or elsewhere too, of course).

We paddle the Djarlgarra Canning wetlands and, amongst the other things of interest, I note the lack of wildflowers. Within the wetter areas there are sedges, rushes, paperbarks, other melaleucas, water, so much life. It takes stepping out onto the mown grass before we see little black-eyed Susan flowers, and other bits of colour. And I know in even drier areas there are many flowers opening to the sunlight now.

In the wetter places, growth and life prevail. In the drier places, light and colour and warmth. Here, now, this means plant and leaves and trees in one place; wildflowers in the other. Still, the more rain, the more wildflower plants in those drier places; and the more light and warmth in the wetland, the more chance of flowers.

Late Djeran, early Kambarang—a.k.a. sometime in spring—I head out with nephew to Bells Rapids where the river comes tumbling down through the hills and, later, onto the plain. We cross the bridge with the tumbling white-water below, all alone, and hike upriver along its banks on the north side in the post-winter green of grass and soapbush amongst the wattle, zamias, banksias, dead and living casuarinas, big tuarts ponderous and hanging over, invasive orange flowers, purple flowers too, and black-eyed Susans. It’s not as wet as last time I came, when waters flowed down from side valleys into the brown river. There are green parrots, wood ducks, black ducks, pied cormorants, white-faced herons, black cormorants, coots, grey teals, red-capped parrots, sacred kingfishers, galahs, kookaburras, corellas, crows, magpies and more. We walk the muddy bank between granites in the bright sun. And we walk all the way to Walyunga National Park, right to the point the river becomes the Gogulyar Avon. Here, at a particular spot, we take off our packs and inflate a couple of small rafts and paddle our way back down the river in stretches between fast-moving rapids and longer stretches of open water with flat paddling. We take our time. The wind pushes us along. We get out and scout our line through rapids at one spot, then do the same again, later, as we re-approach Bells, this time from the water. There is the bridge again, this time with many people on top of it. We pull over on the north side before the rapids, listening to the sound of it. We walk up onto the bridge and see if we can find a line through the rocks—left or right. We walk past the bridge downriver and try to decide the same. In the end we get back in the rafts and try to time it with less people watching, but we can’t avoid attracting a crowd looking down. We approach the rapid with a clear plan in mind, but the river and the boats themselves seem to have other ideas. I try for the left side, then the right, and then, in the end, we both get taken through the middle, straight over a submerged rock…but all is fine, and we ride the water on a little while, through some more rapids. And then, near the car, we pull the rafts out, having now approached this river from some other side.