Gunk (Part 3)

By the time she started off it was a couple of hours past sunrise, but fortunately a sea-breeze had sprung up to take the edge off the heat. She also felt much better for her drink. Even so, she decided that she would try to walk much more slowly than her usual brisk pace, so as to minimise the risk of overheating.

It therefore took her the better part of a couple of hours to cover the four miles or so to the point that proved to be the gulls' destination, by which time she was even more hungry. She had seen nobody during her journey, nor indeed any sign that people ever visited this region. Given the gnats, that was hardly surprising. She had not spotted anything along the way that she could eat either.

1. She found the food source that had attracted the gulls, and nearby was a small stream of fresh water.
2. What had attracted the gulls was a large shoal of small fish in shallow water close inshore. Though catching some would have presented little problem, given their great numbers, Astra wasn't yet desperate enough to eat raw fish.
3. In the last few hundred yards, with a change in the terrain the gnats had rapidly diminished to almost nothing. Now she saw a setllement ahead of her. It was apparently this which had attracted the gulls.

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