Last year we never made it into Culbin Forest.
The trails were closed while Christopher Nolan was filming The Odyssey. Matt Damon and the cast were here shooting the scenes where Odysseus and his men encounter the giants.
We came back this time knowing that, when we eventually watch the film, we’ll recognize these paths and these trees.
It wasn’t the reason the walk became memorable.
We left the car park and followed one of the wide gravel tracks into the forest. Scots pines lined both sides of the trail, with heather, bracken and silver birch growing between them. Sunlight filtered through the canopy, lighting patches of the forest floor while the rest remained in shade.
It was an easy walk.
The trail was wide, the ground was firm, and after a few minutes the only sounds were birds somewhere overhead and our boots on the gravel.
Diane and I settled into the kind of conversation that naturally comes and goes during a walk. We’d talk for a while, fall silent, then pick the conversation up again without either of us feeling the need to fill every quiet moment.
The first frog appeared a few yards ahead of me.
It was so small I almost stepped over it without giving it another thought.
Then I saw another.
A few more appeared near the edge of the path.
Another crossed directly in front of my boot.
Then another.
Within a few seconds I wasn’t looking ahead anymore.
I was looking at the ground.
Every few feet another tiny brown frog appeared between the stones. Some stayed perfectly still until the last possible moment before hopping away. Others moved once, stopped, and blended so completely with the gravel that I immediately lost sight of them again.
“Diane… look.”
She stopped beside me.
Once she’d seen the first few, she started spotting them too.
The frogs had been there all along.
We simply hadn’t noticed them.
From that point on, the walk slowed almost to a shuffle.
Every step began by finding a place to put a boot. We’d avoid one frog, then notice another. We’d step around that one and immediately spot two more. It became almost impossible to walk without looking down.
Neither of us wanted to step on one.
We didn’t know what they were or why there were so many.
We only knew the path seemed full of frogs.
It was then that I remembered why we’d wanted to visit Culbin Forest.
This was where The Odyssey had been filmed.
Matt Damon, playing Odysseus, had walked through these same woods while filming the scenes where he and his men encounter the giants.
Standing there, waiting for another tiny frog to hop clear of the path, I suddenly saw the scene differently.
The giants weren’t somewhere else in the forest.
They were us.
To something no bigger than my thumbnail, a walking boot must have seemed enormous. We weren’t trying to disturb anything, but every step had the potential to do exactly that.
For the next half hour, reaching the end of the trail became much less important than where we placed our feet.
Eventually there were fewer frogs.
Without saying anything, we both began looking farther ahead instead of directly in front of us. Conversation drifted back to where it had paused, although every so often one of us would glance down again before taking another step.
By the time we reached the edge of the forest, I was already thinking ahead to seeing The Odyssey.
I’m sure we’ll recognize Culbin Forest when we watch the film. We’ll know these paths, the shape of the trees and the light filtering through them.
I also know that every time Odysseus and his men walk through those woods, part of my attention will be somewhere else.
I’ll be looking at the ground.
Wondering whether there were hundreds of tiny frogs just out of sight of the camera.
Because for one afternoon in Culbin Forest, the giants weren’t only in the story.
They were us.
