Cacti Wonderland

Sun shining on rain washed trees, open country and frolicking lambs. The family are all well. All is right in my world. We pass a sign to Two Wells and I am sad that I can't go there. Jason was four when we visited the newly formed cacti garden.
    'Look Mum, they are all furry,' he said and grabbed one in his right hand. We spent the next 20miles in the truck pulling out tiny cactus spines one by one from his palm. I wonder how much those cacti have grown, or if they are still there. I am pulled out of my reverie when I see the tall arms of an old saguaro cactus pointing to the sky.
     'Pull over, Alan', I cry. He drives down a dirt road lined by tall red hot poker plants until we see wheel marks turning left and the wire fence pulled back. He parks and waits while I carefully wander into a different world. It is as if I have stepped into Santa Fe in New Mexico where the cacti have gone wild. Cacti of every species and variety, taller than the derelict building hidden amongst them, fight for supremacy amongst gums and wattle trees. On the ground are large and small stone circles. One circle has a huge palm tree in the centre. Who lived here?  Did they come here from New Mexico and plant all these cacti because they yearned to rest their eyes on something familiar? Maybe, forty years ago a besotted young husband planted them for his American bride? Had he since died and the house and land forgotten. I will never know but I came away feeling I had witnessed something unique and very special. I stepped into our car and gazed out the side window at open country and frolicking lambs, but my mind was still standing gazing at a forest of huge cacti and wondering how they got there.