23 years ago, we are at the edge of the Kuranda Rainforest track. Outside, there is only glare and heat and damp. The morning sun bites hard and hot. The bitumen is sticky with heat. The air is so wet that I breathe heavy from the short walk from home. And the blazing song of a million million cicadas buzz, throb, and pulse around us.

Kirra and me, we carefully ease past a cascading curtain of wait-a-while, and we enter the forest.

We enter the cool and dark and quiet.

We enter the stillness of the forest.

I pause to breathe a few breaths and to be present, here.

Kirra wriggles off my hip and runs ahead.

In the heart of this forest there’s a spot where the Kuranda creek murmurs around a large flat rock, 15 steps across: 25 steps for Kirra. There are flay dry patches of rock and little pools, rivulets, and a deep crevasse where an eel may – or may not – live.

Kirra is playing in the creek, perched on the rock, writing on the water with her stick and counting taddies.

I lie on the cool cool stone to look up at the forest giants.

The giant trees, columns and canopy shade us completely: just a few slender rays of sunlight are made visible where they illuminate a leaf, a twig, or tiny floating particles of dust.

And rising between the columns, a cloud of Richmond birdwing butterflies, green stained glass, catch and reflect that sunlight as they circle and eddy slowly in a gentle updraft.