Brunch at Dangling Boulder

Amy, Neil, Sammy, Alex and Pauline, friends and employees of Taipan, were in the final stages of a seminar on how to improve their communication skills when Pauline, the group’s mother hen, hatched a plan. 

“How about we go for a good ol’ fashioned picnic tomorrow? We can meet at Alex’s early in the morning and head to Dangling Boulder. The weather’s supposed to be beautiful, it’ll be a cracker!”  

“Can we call it brunch?” replied Amy. “I don’t do breakfast, sorry.” 

The five friends agreed, and the plans for the day were set.   

The following morning, Neil was in deep discussion with Alex when the others arrived via the latest Uber experience – a driverless sedan! The two girls and Sammy appeared from the hydraulically driven, self-raising opening at the rear of the vehicle.   

As expected, Pauline had everything organised.  

“Let’s go,” said Alex as he shuffled everyone into his BT-50. “Dangling Boulder, here we come!”  

The boulder was a unique shape. You could drive up the gentle slope on one side, which flattened abruptly at the peak. On the other side was a petrifying drop of some eighty metres.  

Plenty of people visited Dangling Boulder daily, but today was South Australia’s biggest sporting event of the year, so everyone was getting behind their favourite darts player and heading to Adelaide oval, where the big screen was covering the action live. The group had the view to themselves.  

Pauline, excited to get brunch preparations under way, eagerly clambered out of the BT-50 with her picnic blanket in tow. In her haste, the heel of her shoe got caught on the corner of the blanket, and she tumbled straight over the cliff.  

“PAULINE!” Amy screamed.  

The four remaining friends rushed to the edge and cautiously peered over. Pauline, bleeding and bruised, was desperately clinging to a ledge way, way down below. 

“Help me!” she yelled. 

“Oh my,” mumbled Amy. Her eyes welled with tears. “What are we going to do?” 

“There’s no signal!” shouted Neil, frantic. 

“Okay calm down, calm down,” muttered Sammy. “There’s got to be something we can…” His voice trailed off as a metaphorical light bulb appeared over his head. 

“Alex!” Sammy burst out. “Do you still have a reel of 100R2-04 in the back of the ute?”  

“Of course I do, I never go anywhere without it,” replied Alex.   

“Quickly, grab it and roll it out!” Sammy instructed.  

Catching on to Sammy’s plan, Amy asked nervously, “Is it going to reach?” 

The boys looked at each other. “It’s 100 metres in a single length every day of the week,” said Neil.  

They lowered the hose to Pauline, and the rescue was a complete success.   

Thank goodness for Taipan.