"Every attraction that a country in a state of nature can possess."

Today being Valentine’s Day it is wholly appropriate that I bring you the story of a pair of Star (Southern) Crossed Lovers.

While President Mel tries to persuade the waitress in the hotel to wind up the coffee machine, Zeke (pictured, with Large Honda) takes me and Muffy to the Mount Brown lookout over York and the Avon Valley.

The mountains have a sad story attached. In the Dreamtime the Hill People and the Valley People used to meet in the Avon Valley for sports and games. A young Valley Woman and a young Hill Man fell in love; but their people did not allow them to be together. Their relationship was taboo. As is traditional in such situations, they ran away so that they could be together.

The Valley People asked for her to be sent home. The Hill People said they did not know where the two young lovers had gone.

As is also traditional in such situations, the Valley People sent an army to bring her back.

The Hill People, having the advantage of the high ground, were handing out a pasting to their Valley brothers. So the Valley People called on their medicine man, who turned the Hill warriors to trees where they stood.

The warriors having been well and truly rooted, the medicine man then cursed Wunding and Wilura. Their bodies were found, but their spirits are tied to the mountains. He is stuck on Mount Bakewell, and she is stuck on Mount Barker, until the mountains turn to dust.

It would be a better story if she, being such a tart, were stuck on Mount Bakewell.