Time shows no signs of slowing down. It’s almost two months since I finished my secondment, and it feels like a lifetime, yet it’s passed in the blink of an eye.
We’re back in SE Qld! I’m writing from what may be my favourite cafe of all time – Palm Beach’s Espresso Moto – taking a breather between chapters of Jen Gale’s ‘The Sustainsble(ish) Living Guide’. Somehow, it’s gently de-overwhelming the prospect of making some tangible, sustainable life changes and I’m all rather fired up.
In the last few days in Townsville – Monday and Tuesday last week – Dan grabbed his glider and headed for hills while I grabbed my bike and jumped on the boat to Magnetic Island. I spent the days ticking off the beautiful walks and waiting out the heat of the day with a book (Ben Elton’s This Other Eden, in fact) in the shade. I was expecting to be enamoured by the scenery, but what I wasn’t expected was to be left with so many different trains of thought to ponder after staying the night with family friends Steve and Maureen. Poetry, building, different chapters of life – I really find myself dwelling on my time there.
After a delightful Townsville-family dinner on the Strand on Tuesday night, we hit the road on Wednesday. A jolly array of podcasts kept us occupied until we pulled in at Calliope, near Gladstone, for the night, and in the morning we polished off the last leg to Rainbow Beach.
At Rainbow, Dan took to the skies again. It’s quite a magical spot with the huge sand blow overlooking the vast, rich-blue ocean. We camped at Inskip, getting the car (minority) bogged for the first time in the whole journey. In the morning, Dan went for another fly while I meandered down the first section of the Cooloola Great Walk.
It’s nice writing about such a glorious experience which is so close to home because it’s possible that you, my SE Qld reader, can go out and pit my description of it against reality sometime!
Cooloola was seriously beautiful. The track is wide, smooth and well-signed, guiding you through different sections of scrub, rainforest and – 8km later – gently depositing you at the honey-coloured Poona Lake. From there, there’s another 82km of Great Walk, but I decided to head back for the day because I wanted to re-experience the scenery.
Perhaps another dimension that enriched the whole experience for me was being asked by a family member about a privacy-related query. It was straight-forward and discrete, but was a platform for me to explore a whole lot of related issues in my mind and get a new perspective on the area of law I love practising.
That night, we enjoyed staying with another of Dan’s Townsville paragliding friends in Caloundra, and in the morning, we zooped up Tibrogagen with my brother before the rain set in.
The time since has been a patchwork quilt of catch ups with family and friends, and making ourselves at home at Benny and Mel’s place again as if we’d never left (thanks guys).
We’ve probably got another week or two in SEQ before we return to the north to sail back. And we’re going to make the most of it – this is a special corner of the world to us.
VREPS
[Palm Beach]
The Two Swords 