The stream winds its way down the gentle hill and through the dense forest, carrying a single golden leaf downstream like a tiny boat. The glistening water flows over round rocks and under mossy rotting logs, reflecting beams of light that every now and then break through the green canopy roof formed by the trees. Unnoticeable tiny fish dart in and out of the red flowing weed growing on the banks of the shallow stream, moving so fast all that the human eye could see of them would be a flash of sliver.

Slowly the banks of the stream close in, the flow starts to speed up and you watch as gravity transforms the water from slow and gentle to violent and out of control. Thousands of individual droplets fall at once. Each droplet a tear rolling off a mother’s cheek. These tears bounce off rocks jutting out of the sheer cliff face and fall all the way to land in the churning water below. You watch the leaf fall, pushed downwards by the heavy droplets of water. Watch as it hits the foaming angry pool at the bottom of the waterfall and submerges into the murky depths.

Scattered around you golden leaves stand out on the dull dark brown rock, like spilled pirates treasure reflecting the suns rays. Everywhere you look a sea of green and brown, seemingly untouched by the human hand, as if you were an old explorer the first person to ever be there. A soft woolly blanket of moss covers the hard sheer rock wall that extends down beside the waterfall. On the other side of the waterfall trees lean on tantalising angles over the edge of the drop. Their roots competing for space to get a grip on the limited soil, even holding onto each other in their struggle to remain grounded on the narrow ledge. Below them trees, ferns and other plants grow almost horizontally up the steep cliff face as if they were the irregular twisted rungs of a giants ladder.

All this beautiful nature and then you, bam smack in the middle of it, sitting atop the cliff, beside the waterfall, with your feet dangling off the edge. Your bright board shorts couldn’t be more out of place, standing out for miles in the sea of natural greens and browns. Your feet tingle as you look down the cliff face, so square and straight it seems manmade a castle wall from the dark ages perhaps, or an overflowing dam letting out a gushing stream of water.

The sound of the waterfall fills your ears, a constant noise, but the longer you sit on the edge the quieter it becomes although your brain filters it out. Instead you hear the sounds of birds whistling, chirping and fluttering around the forest. Above you the trees leaves rustle and move almost of their own accord as under the shelter of the green leafy canopy there is no wind. Almost as if under the trees you’re in your own little world and time is frozen.

The fresh slightly cool air enters your lungs as you breathe in, and leaves them wanting more as you slowly exhale. People say air has no taste but this air tastes distinctively fresh, as though is has been milked straight from the trees around you. You breathe in again, savouring every minute because you know soon you will leave and the things your experiencing right now will remain only in your memory until you die.