The things one finds in the Forest

I have occasionally commented upon finding stolen (burnt out) cars in the bush. Half way down a track below the Power Lines, at Mt Murray Road, there is a full-size office safe, with the back panel cut out. Obviously it is empty. Clearly a product of a fully serious robbery, which was then dumped over the cliff. It was such a heavy object, it has rolled for hundreds of metres before stopping, against a large rock. It was miles from the nearest road.

Well, today I was walking in the Robertson Nature Reserve, with Greg Chapman. Just before we left the forest, I noticed something unusual, thrown behind a large tree. On close inspection, it turned out to be a brief case. It was half open, and documents were spilling out of it. A quick inspection revealed that it contained book-keeping records from the local Supermarket.

It seems that Heather and Neil's Supermarket had been broken into, last weekend. Obviously the thieves had dumped the briefcase, after finding that it only contained "useless papers". Useless to them - that is. I realised that Neil and Heather would want to get back their shop records, tax papers, etc which were in this briefcase.

After I had had a look at it, and worked out to whom it belonged, Greg told me that their shop had been broken into a few nights before (I did not know). I realised that I would have inadvertently smudged any fingerprints which might have been on the handle. (When I picked it up, I had no idea that there had been a robbery). So, that damage having been done (inadvertently), I decided to carry the briefcase back to the the Supermarket.

Greg and I went there, and when I showed Neil what we had found, he was thrilled. So much so that, having asked me if I "liked Scotch", he reached to the "top shelf" and offered me a bottle of Glenfiddich. Somewhat stunned, I graciously accepted his offer. Greg, who doesn't drink, accepted some Coke Zero.

I had occasion to go back to the Supermarket later in the day, and Neil told me that he had calculated that he would have had to spend a week, or more, trying to reconstruct the Shop's trading records, if I had not found them. No wonder he was pleased to see the "paperwork" turn up intact.