Out in the country I was at a Turpin Falls, a freshwater ‘swimming hole’ which is the rather unattractive name Australians’ give to ponds that you can swim in.

The mid-summer heat and dry weather pretty much reduced the ‘falls’ to nothing more than a moderate trickle, but that didn’t really matter. It was still a fun place. (See a YouTube video of a bunch of randoms jumping off the rocks there.)

It was quite busy when we arrived and is clearly a popular spot with local young people who were whiling away their summers in that way you only do when you’re young. As the day reached into the evening various groups made noisy exits, loudly calling out to one another and laughing at their in-jokes.

Eventually, just four guys remained. Two made repeated jumps from the top of the waterfall, with the other two just bobbing around in the water on inflatables. Their music blared out filling the air with the tracks that they might one day look back on as the soundtrack to their youth.

I imagined a younger me as one of those young guys. I could totally see myself jumping from the top of the waterfall trying to make a huge splash in the water, ahead of the huge splash my younger self was keen to make in life. It looked and sounded like the kind of glorious carefree fun that sunny summer day memories are made of.

I didn’t jump off the waterfall today, I didn’t really feel the urge. The sun had mellowed me as much as the years have, so I was happy to just sit there and watch. Though let’s be honest, there’s still a part of me that would like to make that big splash.