Where the trees were / Inga Simpson.

Jay, Kieran, his brother Matty, Ian and Josh were best friends and during school holidays they raced around the farm; spending time by the river. It was 1987 and they had their lives ahead of them. They lived in the here and now, having so much fun and being let roam by their parents who had been on this land for a long time. But the day the five friends discovered carved trees in a grove on the river’s edge was the day their lives changed forever. Vowing to always remain friends and to protect the grove – keep the secret even from their parents – wasn’t difficult; but when disaster struck their worlds were rocked to their very core. In 2004 Jayne was working in Canberra at a well-known art gallery; as a senior conservationist her speciality was in Australian artworks, especially Aboriginal artefacts and arborglyphs. Her delight in discovering previously uncovered gems and painstakingly researching their origin was special to Jayne. She was also a keen cyclist and spent her time on the cycle paths of Canberra imagining she was racing in the Tour de France. The chill of Canberra’s winter didn’t let up; the crunch of ice beneath her wheels kept her moving.