Once, when my parents were putting metal stakes into the ground, my brother - who is also blind - and I noticed that when they were banged with a hammer, the echoes bouncing off the house were really strong. We realised we could use that. Playing games like hide-and-seek with our sighted brother honed our skills. His idea of hiding from us was standing in the middle of the lawn. At first we couldn't find where he was, but as we got better at echolocating. he had to hide behind trees. We soon learned to find him there too. Once we'd mastered the skill, we taught ourselves now to ride bikes. We didn't just use echolocation, but other things too to keep track of where we were: the slope of the road, whether the gravel was loose or well-packed. But we would always be clicking, listening for the grass growing at the side of the road, or for the turning into our driveway.
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