Walkabout (1971) -- Was She Looking for Quicksand?

[QuicksandMania]

There was an unusual 1971 film called Walkabout that centered on a white sister and brother stranded in the Australian outback and guided by a young Aborigine on his walkabout or wilderness journey to adulthood. I saw it in high school at a "gifted" summer program. (I put "gifted" in sneer quotes because of some questionable material taught there.) One scene had the "city slicker" sister testing some soft ground, walking gently across it while looking at her own feet. No explanation was given but since the whole theme of the movie was contrasting the regimented human against the wild human, I gathered it was a metaphor for her testing the firmness of reality itself. Even when I watched it as part of a large audience of youth I wondered if it was going to turn into our kind of "scene" but no such luck.

The film is on http://www.hulu.com/watch/215798 but it is a pay site and I was just wondering what anyone else thought of the movie and that scene in particular, i.e. was she looking for quicksand?

[Duncan Edwards]

I had never considered this. I thought she was just avoiding the mud in a girly manner but your explanation actually fits better. I first saw this movie while young and all I could focus on was a skinny dipping Jenny Agutter years before she was wet in Logan's Run.

[PM2K]

I never considered that, but now I can't get that thought out of my head. And it is a nice and cozy one...

Being a fan of Agutter, naked and otherwise, that is a nice thing indeed...