I don’t write this post to suggest that our last day of 2020 has any more significance than anyone else’s. It doesn’t. It’s just a golden time for reflection, and given this blog’s all about reflection, I’m going to continue the trend. If you’d like an avid listening ear to your own reflection on your 2020, I’m here.

We got off the Wanderer in Yeppoon in mid-December, and Alice, Dan and I flew back to Brisbane from Rockhampton. What ensued was an incredible festive period – four family Christmas celebrations, and lots of extra quality family time (especially with the Swords, given six out of six and their families had converged in Camira for the week). I’m so grateful to the loving efforts of the hosts and cooks whose houses and food we enjoyed. And to those who let us stay over – we are still nomad until we secure a place. The search is in progress!

On Boxing Day, we started heading Manilla-wards so I could buy paragliding gear and both of us could fly. The drive down was not a smooth success – two wrong turns cost us an extra 4-5 hours. We spent two days at Manilla making the most of time between spells of rain by ground-handling (flying wings in a paddock – no leaving the ground) but there wasn’t an opportunity to fly, so in the pouring rain, we started heading home. We stayed overnight a few hours away, and continued in the morning for another hour, only to find out that the Manilla weather was unexpectedly spectacular, and the forecast for the next few days had back-flipped and it would continue to be spectacular. We drove three hours back, and were airborne by midday.

We’ve each had 6-8 gorgeous Mt Borah flights over the last few days. We’ve been tremendously supported by senior pilots who help us decode the weather and encourage us how to make the most from our flying. We haven’t been up for hugely long – the longest was Dan’s 19 minute flight over the mountain and 5km back to the farm. The highest was my morning flight, up to 1360m before I scooted away from a dark-looking cloud (which I was later told wasn’t a worry – I was a bit conservative). But it’s been super fun, and I’m learning heaps from every flight.

I feel like I’ve been 2021-focussed ever since getting back to Brisbane. I’m excited to get back to work. I’m excited to find and set up a home. I’m looking forward to routine, flying at local sites, and spending more time with friends and family. I haven’t spent much time thinking about 2020, which is imminently about to be referred to in past tense.

Now that I take a moment to think about it, while perched on the grass overlooking Mt Borah, I’m grateful. I feel very fortunate that we got two and a half months of South America exploring before covid intervened. I’m grateful that we were able to have so many amazing experiences for the rest of the year. It feels indulgent to take this extended break from work, but I feel we’ve made the most of it. It’s also going to make us grateful for so many things that are easy to take for granted as we settle back in to our Brisbane life. And like so many others over the world, through the pandemic, I feel like we’ve discovered a resilience in us, that’s helped us endure lockdowns and quarantines, and that’s helped us be adaptable as circumstances and rules change.

Our finale to 2020 seems fitting – we’re staying in a tent and living out of our car, we’re in a beautiful part of the world, enjoying expansive skies, and with gusto, we’re giving our all to becoming better paragliders. And, we’ll probably have an early night. Glorious.

Wishing everyone in our lives a great 2021.

VREPS

[Mt Borah]

Most of this final leg of the sailing journey has been spent at Middle Percy Island, not just waiting for the northerlies, but also exploring the island and its rich history. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was settled as a coffee plantation, and later became a sheep farm. In the last eight decades, a handful of families have held the lease to caretake the island, living off the island’s honey, vege garden and goats (and deliveries).

Percy is a delight. We first pulled into Rescue Bay, where multi-coloured sand dunes fall down to the shore, and later relocated to West Bay, where the island’s famous “A Frame” sits. The A Frame holds a collection of thousands of signs from visiting boaties over several decades – a sprawling museum curated by its own visitors. From there, tracks lead to the Lagoon, the Homestead, and some of the island’s bays.

Life on Percy, for us, was relatively slow-paced. The first two days were a feverish bundle of excitement over paragliding and kitesurfing, but we soon settled for regular ascents to the island’s few pockets of reception. We saw some incredible storms roll through, including an impressive theatre performance one night put on by the lightning. (In general, the skies viewed from Percy are larger than elsewhere, I’m sure of it.) On the final day, Dan, Ben and I bush-bashed our way from False Creek to Castle Rock for some ridiculously beautiful views of the island’s north coastline.

Percy was also the venue for our first ‘Wandermas’, where we made presents from what we could find on the island, adapted carols, and enjoyed the last of our veges on delicious homemade pizzas. The festivities were slightly dampened when we discovered that our tender was no longer on shore. Thorpie embarked on a wild recovery mission in the dark, but successfully brought her home and the celebrations recommenced.

I don’t have a copy of Alice or Thorpie’s pictures from the night, yet, but you’re going to have to imagine a beautiful woven palm leaf table setting overseen by a twig-star held together by vine, and ringed with a homemade grass and gum wreath (both made by yours truly) on which are our Wandermas gifts: Ben’s watercolour painting of the Wanderer (which, turned upside down, looks like a paraglider), Alice’s woven grass placemat, Thorpie’s statue of a Hawaiian medicine man, my “serving plate and set of four bowls” (bark and half-coconuts, decorated with snail shells and gumnuts) and Dan’s thickly-shell-covered, key-holder driftwood. And behind this lamp-lit scene, you’ve got to imagine Thorpie’s stern pirate face and Alice smiling delightedly at all the Wandermas spirit. I’ll share the photo later and you can let me know how my description measures up.

This blog wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the fish we’ve feasted on. Around Percy, Dan caught a barracuda and a mackerel and speared a coral trout, and Ben also speared another two coral trout. It’s been so special to have such fresh fish frequently.

A big thanks also to current caretakers, Robin and Annie, who generously invited us for goat stew one night, hosted us at the homestead, and showed us around their (what I’d describe as “evocative of a pirate”) ship, the Joshua C.

After successfully navigating a night passage from Percy (thanks to everyone except for me), we’re well on our way to the Keppel Islands. We’ll soon leave Wanderer at Yeppoon, splash out on some green vege, and be homebound by road.

I’m not looking forward to saying goodbye to the seas and my crew, but I am really looking forward to being back in Brisbane.

VREPS

[Somewhere off the coast of Byfield National Park]

I kept my expectations of the Whitsundays moderately low, as I was convinced that everything I’d heard to date was likely over-stated – probably inadvertently, like an excited fisher estimating the size of their almost-catch. It is against this background, that my expectations were outstandingly exceeded.

The water is so vibrantly turquoise, that it makes the sky look mauve. The water is so clear that you can see every contour in the sand as if it’s just below your feet, even if you’re in four metres of water. The islands vary in their vegetation – some are heathlands with a smattering of rocks, others splotched with a patchwork of bright greens, others uniformly covered with the dark European green of pine forests. It’s heavenly, not in the tropical-island-paradise way, but in the natural wilderness way.

Our time here has been exquisite – let me describe it in my favourite way, as a montage. We’ve feasted on fresh coral trout (speared by Ben), scurfed under the light of the full moon (except me – at the time, I hadn’t mastered it), imagined gliding off every exposed peak we’ve passed, snorkel-explored some incredible sections of coral reef, taken to rowing the tender around for the joy of it instead of using the motor, basked in richly coloured sunsets and bright moonlit nights, hiked sections of Whitsunday Island, rallied to launch and land the drone safely while sailing (only a little blood was spilled), combed our fingers through the soft white sand of Whitehaven beach, played corn hole during numerous sunsets, and – as our food supplied dwindled – cooked increasingly inventive meals.

By day 15, we’d run out of fresh water on the boat so we ducked into Airlie for 24 hours of reprovisioning on land. I thought I’d be stoked for the creature comforts of landlife, but with the exception of the gourmet marina showers, we were otherwise all itching to get back out to sea.

In amongst a crowd of beautiful days, day 18 stands out. We rose early at Whitehaven beach for a walk to the lookout, and we were headed for Thomas Island when we communally decided that Lindeman Island looked paraglidable. We pulled in and attempted a wild bush bash walk to a potential launch site, without success. But on the way, we were greeted by a nursery of baby black tipped sharks and a handful of friendly turtles. After waiting out the rest of the heat of the day, Alice and Dan very patiently drove the tender while I took my sweet time learning how to skurf (ski + surfing, apparently), fortunately with some success. After an afternoon of skurfing, we hot-footed it up the hill to a different launch site, where gliders were rolled out as the sun set. Thorpie managed to grasp a window of opportunity and gracefully fly down to the beach. As we tendered back to the boat, the sea was filled with the winkling electric green light of … coral spawn, we think? It looked like fireflies on the water.

I think something that’s characterised our time here has been Thorpie’s detailed knowledge of the area. Having guided sea kayaking expeditions here, he knows how to beeline for the best spots, and has some beautiful stories from the area.

Our current plan is to spend a couple of days getting to the Percy Isles, and then bring the boat back to dock at Yeppoon – we just won’t make it back to Brisbane in time for Christmas celebrations if we sail the whole way. We are – slowly – homeward bound.

VREPS

[Lindeman Island]

(Written 27 November but published a day later when we realised we could get 4G by half climbing the mast and holding the phone up at arm’s length).

It’s day ten aboard the Wanderer, currently anchored at Cape Upstart (Budgenerra). The sunset is already a warm gold, and will fast progress to a radiant glow, which will be picked up in the wispy clouds around. Thorpie, Wanderer’s owner and our skipper, is tapping away fixing a port light (living out his own saying that sailing is doing boat maintenance in beautiful places). Ben and Alice are downstairs preparing vege lasagne in the kitchen (which is a feat, given the kitchen is really too small for two people). Dan’s reading on deck with me, bathed in the aforementioned sunset gold. And I’m struggling to work out how to sum up so many beautiful moments in ten same-ish days without leaving out something important.

Our journey so far has taken far longer than we’d imagined. The plan was Orpheus on day one, and Magnetic on day two. The wind’s supreme unhelpfulness has meant that we made Orpheus on day three and Magnetic on day six. It’s a stately pace, and a lot of our progress has been made by motorsailing. When we have sailed it’s often been at a rakish angle – the deck might be at 40 degrees or so – which the boat is comfortable with, but it’s taken me some getting used to.

Let me do my best to introduce you to Wanderer (I’m still very new to all things nautical, so this is a layperson’s description). She’s a 50-foot (or so) monohull yacht with a beautiful teak deck and two cabins at each end (with other convertible beds). Half the deck is covered, so we can generally find shade during the day, and at the moment she’s holding a lifetime worth of adventure gear – gliders, kite surfing gear, supps, snorkeling and spear fishing gear, the list goes on. There’s a zippy tender that gets us from the anchored boat to shore, and is used every few days for skurfing (wake boarding with a surfboard).

Things I love about boat life include: how much love is poured into each meal that we make for each other; accessing the deck from the hatch in our room; the company of my fellow seafarers; generally having at least a nap a day (or sometimes six); reading voraciously (just finished my fourth book – Treasure Island, fittingly); the gentle rocking of the boat at a gentle anchorage; exploring islands and national parks; getting creative with food as we get through our stocks of fresh food; playing cards; playing corn hole; enjoying raw and cooked fresh fish; hours and hours while sailing spent enjoying the shape of the clouds; learning how to control the sails and how to tie useful knots.

I’m not going to attempt to describe each day and each scene that’s touched me in detail, so here’s just a few tasty morsels.

We’ve done fairly well for fish. Dan caught a giant queen off the back of the boat on the first day, a spotted mackerel two days later, and Ben spearfished a sea brim the day after. Since it’s now been a few days, Dan’s been fishing with increasing intensity. Today, that intensity peaked as we’ve been anchored on a bay with wild schools of bait fish being chased by wild schools of tuna being chased by dive-bombing sea birds. Dan, Ben and I spent a number of hours careening around in the tender in a comedy skit worth of errors trying to reel in a tuna – I dropped the handreel in the sea creating the greatest knotted lines of this century; Dan fell overboard and Ben lost the spear from his speargun trying to use it from the boat. Undeterred, Dan spent another hour or so in the afternoon chasing tuna. He caught a big one, but it got away, taking the lure with it. (Dan, reading a draft of this post, rightly commented how that last sentence doesn’t come anywhere near capturing the emotion and energy of the whole experience. You’ll have to use your imagination.)

We’ve snorkelled in some pretty divine reefs. The giant clam garden at Orpheus stands out. It wasn’t just a few – it was hundreds, in all their different colours.

Of all the places we’ve been so far – Gould, Hinchinbrook, Orpheus, Palm, Magnetic, Cape Bowling Green – where we are now at Cape Upstart stands out as a favourite. This mountainous, rocky land is lined by a community of shacks. We explored the sea cliffs to the north, and they were exceptional. It would be great to see if we could come back and rock climb sometime (when I’m much more skilled). From high up on the cliffs, the ocean was clear enough to spot large fish and sharks. The sunsets have been tip top.

Unless the northerlies gain some consistency and strength, we’ll probably keep heading south at our current pace and dock north of Brisbane so Dan, Alice and I can get down in time for Christmas festivities.

Until then, there’s a whole range of beautiful islands and coastlines to explore, a whole lot of fish to catch, and a sizeable stack of boat books for me to devour.

VREPS

[Cape Upstart]

I wasn’t sure I’d take to paragliding. I certainly don’t think I have important qualities in abundance – particularly a sizeable risk appetite. On day one of the paragliding course, I found myself on a table of twelve strangers who were reciting their adventure sports experience – sky divers, mountaineers, cavers, back country skiers, sailplane pilots, ultra marathon runners, base jumpers. I didn’t have much to contribute – I’d been skiing a handful of times, I dabble in mountain biking (I was scraping the barrel) and I’ve been on a few tandem paraglides where I was well and truly distracted by the view and didn’t notice much about the flying.

Fast forward nine days and that table of strangers was Dan’s and my firm friends. We’d all exceeded the expectations of our instructors, staying aloft for long flights in lots of thermic lift, generally refusing to come down, and launching and landing with increasing (but still not much) grace. We’d sat shoulder-to-shoulder on countless trips up the mountain in the Troopies, sharing stories of our flights, encouraging each other and celebrating excellent launches and landings. We’d upset the balance maintained by the patient groundskeeper by regularly gathering all the outdoor chairs at the round table and Moe and Simon’s deck for meals and post-day nibbles together. It definitely felt like a shared journey, and I can’t imagine better people to have shared it with.

(I miss them so much, that I’m going to include an inordinate number of pictures of them.)

The course was at Fly Manilla, a world class paragliding site run by the indefatigable Godfrey. Mt Borah presides over the site, with her four launch sites facing the cardinal points so pilots can launch in any wind direction (but only in specific wind speeds – we’re still at the mercy of mother nature’s kindness to get airborne). The view from the top is magnificent – on a clear day, I think we could see 1/6th of NSW to the west. It’s surrounded by farmland (relatively safe for emergency landing!) and the grounds of the site include a headquarters with an airfoil-shaped roof and a generous number of cabins, glamping tents and other space for camping.

Godfrey teaches a rigorous course. There’s no “just read the textbook”-style learning here. Throughout all the non-flyable time on the course – easily in excess of 20 hours – we were methodically taught aerodynamics, meteorology (who knew synoptic charts could be so much fun?), general flying theory and plenty of stories and tips for getting through challenges and emergencies in the sky. I think it’s only through his meticulous teaching (and the fact that he and Karl, another of our instructors, were some of the professional testers that put the prototype of our style of glider through all kinds of horror situations to personally verify how well it recovered) that I developed sufficient confidence that I understood the air and trusted the glider to be able to run off the mountain.

I want to say that “flying is magical” because I miss it terribly already – but sometimes it wasn’t. There’s lots of rising air around Mt Borah, which is a paraglider’s dream for cross-country flying, but novice Viva just found it awfully bumpy and passed the time trying to keep her heart rate under control by reciting the recovery steps to every kind of thing that could happen while in the air. Paragliding feels super easy when the air is smooth and you sink through it – the conditions you get at sunrise and sunset. When it’s lifting, the glider ducks and weaves a bit around different moving air, and the feeling of being a bit buoyant in the seat is not exactly comforting.

I patiently endured the first few flights with lift, but eventually learned to manage the bubbliness and enjoy the scenery. In my last two flights on Sunday, Godfrey (from the launch site!) directed me over the radio to thermals where I’d do 360 turns up and up into the sky. I was high – probably 1500m to 2000m above sea level, and hundreds of metres above Mt Borah. From the second flight, I flew the 5km back to HQ and landed near our tent. It was all exhilarating, and I can’t wait to get my own glider and start flying as a licensed pilot.

Dan also had a ball. He got along with my coursemates like a house on fire, and they all commented on how graceful and controlled he is with his glider. He’s a pleasure to watch on launch. He too thermalled (solo, without instructor assistance!) and made it back to HQ on a flight. I can’t wait to start exploring some SEQ sites together.

As this particular chapter comes to a close, we hasten towards the start of the next one. In the 22 hours after Dan’s last Mt Borah flight, we drove back to Brisbane in two stints overnight, packed up for the boat, and flew into Townsville. We’re a bus ride away from Cardwell, where we embark tomorrow morning. I’m expecting limited/no reception, lots of fish (I think my vegetarianism doesn’t extend to fish personally and freshly hand-caught from the ocean), and a steep learning curve in terms of how the whole sailing thing works.

From open skies to open seas – here we come.

“Thermal Bird” (also known as Thistle Bird, during those few days when my landings were more often than not butt-slides into the weeds)

[Townsville]

PS It felt so strange driving after the week in Manilla, having intensively practised an ultra risk-aware mindset. I’ve always been a safe driver, but I feel like I’m suddenly more aware of just how dangerous it feels …

Our time in Brisbane felt far longer than the week and a half we spent loitering around. This blog post is going to focus on some of the objectively beautiful places we’ve explored, setting aside the subjectively beautiful experiences in between – family catch ups and celebrations, a wild Halloween party, a foray back into indoor soccer, and lots of bike rides.

• Jacaranda season – such a treat for the eyes (and a danger to the bike tyres)

• Binna Burra and Gold Coast Hinterland – it was so nice to get back to Binna Burra. It’s open for walks and camping; the Lodge will take a bit more time. The rainforest provides sweet relief from the summer heat. The photos are from the region near Killarney Glen.

• Mt Tambourine – we camped nearby as Dan was planning a flight in the morning, but the conditions weren’t quite right. His consolation prize was the road-ringed but otherwise outstanding Curtis Falls track hike.

• Beerwah – again, one of Dan’s planned flights thwarted by wind direction, but allowed him to take this stunning footage.

• The Scenic Rim Trail – this is a new Great Walk between Thornton and Cunningham’s Gap. Katie, Dan and I did the first 8.5km (in and out) from the Thornton side and now can’t wait to explore the rest on a multi-day hike sometime. On our steep stretch, there were rewarding views of the valley throughout.

We thought that we’d be in Brisbane for another week, but (as usual) our plans change rapidly. A spot became available at Fly Manilla (NSW, near Tamworth) for me to learn paragliding, and we can squeeze in the 9 day course before rendezvousing with the sailboat up north. So we’re southbound! We’ve had an easy driving day and a stunning afternoon at Lennox Heads, soaking up the views of the oceans and headlands, the committed swarms of surfers, and marvelling at the bright, manicured green grass.

Dan’s doing a lousy job at staying incognito while watching the State of Origin in enemy territory. I don’t think we’re making any friends (especially while Queensland is winning).

VREPS

[Lennox Heads]

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]

Cape Cleveland has beckoned me ever since we got to Townsville earlier this year. It’s a shadow on the horizon, deceptively island-like from sea level as the connecting mainland is so flat it seems to disappear. Its mountainous outline has be siren-calling me for weeks now, and I’m so glad to finally understand how that 2D shape transposed into a 3D wilderness up close.

But before then, retracing our steps for a moment, I last wrote from Mission Beach. After the paddle, we behaved like sloths for the remaining daylight hours, and then caught up with friends in the evening. We were given an invitation to join their sailing trip in early November from Mission down the east coast, which we were thrilled to accept. The next day, we potted around Tully (including a lunch stop at the Alligator Nest swimming hole) and stayed over at the stunning Murray Falls.

These falls rate as one of Dan’s favourite North Queensland spots. Above the main falls is a deep, circular pool fed by another waterfall. It’s pretty magical, and is in a beautiful spot surrounded by mountains.

The next day we spent the day in the sweaty heat helping out on the sailing boat – Dan on sanding and me on fibreglassing. It wasn’t particularly glamorous, but the resin art I’ll one day make work the skills I acquired will be. I can’t wait for the boat to become home for a few weeks!

Sweaty and exhausted, we pulled into the Five Mile Swimming Hole for a bath (seriously, Brisbane needs to get in and amongst this freshwater swimming hole trend) and stayed overnight at Jourama Falls. We hiked up to the lookout in the morning and basked in the glory of the hundreds of metres of staggered cliff down which she runs.

This brings us to a post-Jourama Wednesday arrival in Townsville (which you could tell me was five days ago and I would have believed you). We’ve had some treasured quality time with family, some bike rides, and delicious meals. On Friday, I had the highlight of my life so far as an aunt – Drew’s Book Fair Day at school! Drew dressed up as Harry Potter (complete with wand and Nimbus 2000 foraged fresh from the garden that morning) and I unashamedly dropped him to school wearing Jen’s robes as the world’s first Professor McGonagall in hiking sandals.

Yesterday, Dizee (my sister-in-law), Dan and I ventured out to Cape Cleveland after several people in our life offered to support us on the mish’. Clint took us on a roaring boat trip to the lighthouse, where we met the caretaker and his mate and read up on the history of the region and lighthouse keeper families in the museum. We then embarked on a very sketchy “13”-maybe-more-like-16 kilometre journey to the main road.

We knew that the route (we wanted to do the eastern side) didn’t have an official track, but I don’t think we realise just how touch-and-go all the bush bashing and navigation was going to be. Dan, fortunately, kept us to a sensible line (I shudder to think how much tougher the walk would have been if I was left making the decision on what direction to take).

The walk was epic. The scenery shifted around us every few kilometres – waist-high grasses to rocky and shelly beaches overlooking Magnetic and the glowing ocean, burnt-out sections with the crunchy black tufts underfoot and trees supporting fancy new green wigs to boulder-strewn grasslands with unexpected and precarious drops, stunning high views of the sea with its bands of blue and bluer colours, stretches of beaches to crowded treed gullies with a narrow path down the dry creek bed. It was like a week’s worth of travel scenes compressed into seven-and-a-bit hours. One of my personal favourite parts was the colour scheme of the burnt out sections – the shade of orange was strikingly and surprisingly reminiscent of pumpkin spice latte season in America.

Our wildlife sightings included a young green sea turtle (Dan helped it back into the water), a large marine animal jumping out of the water, and a family of black pigs including little piglets.

But it wasn’t all sunshine and daisies (actually it was all sunshine – absolutely ruthlessly so). The day was exhaustingly hot, and despite thinking we’d over-prepared with water, we rationed ourselves to the last few drops on the home stretch. We were spiked and scratched by various flora (fortunately not by any fauna), Dan got covered in green ants, and we occasionally felt an anxious sense of being lost, especially when we had to back-track to find a workable line.

Still, I am so enormously grateful that we got the do the walk – thanks to Clint and also to Jen for the pick up on the other end. My original plan was to do it solo both ways, carrying camping gear, and I’m so relieved that that didn’t transpire as I’d have likely turned back embarrassingly early.

Couple more days in Townsville, and then we’re likely to start heading south to get the car back to Brisbane before the sailing trip. More adventures await.

VREPS

[Townsville]

This part of our trip has been characterised by a day-on-day reimagining of our trajectory. We’ll have a plan but it will inevitably not last more than a day or two as new ideas and directions take hold.

When we decided to head through the Misty Mountains, our plan was to loop around to Tully and from there follow the coast. It turned out that reliably unreliable Google was tricking us when it suggested you could get through that way inland – the roads come close, but don’t connect. So we veered inland to explore the Undara Volcanic National Park, planning to reach Townsville inland via Charters Towers. But after Undara, we were called back to the Palmerstone Highway and the coast, and that’s how I find myself now writing from Mission Beach – Dan in the hammock, me sprawled on a towel, both cowering from direct sunlight over the heat of the day.

But it’s all the stuff in between those changes of direction that really matters.

From South Johnstone campground in the Misty Mountains, we braved a section of the rambling Cardwell Track on our bikes before heading into the town of Ravenshoe. The visitor’s centre there is spectacular – brilliant displays about the local indigenous peoples, and the controversy around World Heritage listing the nearby forestry areas. For the afternoon, we visited the Tully Gorge lookout and waterfalls (we found one of the few flowing parts for a swim), Dan fell off his bike and grated his poor knee (it’s healing) and we visited (and stayed at) the stunning Little Millstream Falls.

The next day, after riding around Big Millstream Falls, we made tracks for Undara – a national park famous for its lava tubes – via a stop at Innot Hot Springs so Dan could have a(n almost unbearably hot) soak. The landscape changed to crispy dryness and unrelenting heat. After an ambitious ride around the treed Kalkani Crater, we spent the whole afternoon camped out at the bistro, grateful for shade and the occasional breeze. When the sun was lower in the sky, we explored the walking tracks by bike, and at night, marvelled at the outback stars.

The next morning, we embarked on the Undara Experience “Archways Explorer” tour. And finally I was told what a lava tube actually was! The Undara volcano was the kind that oozed lava slowly (as opposed to the stereotypical volcano explosions we think of). This lava would form rivers and make its way out over the landscape. The top layer would solidify, insulating the rest of the lava and allowing it to continue its journey. This had formed lava tubes – the solidified top over a gaping tube of cave. Some parts have caved in, creating beautiful places for semi-evergreen forest to inhabit, surrounded by dry savannah landscape. If you look up Undara on Google Maps through satellite view, you’ll see the stark pattern of green streaks showing lava tube (and collapses) which stretch for up to 160km.

While the size and expanse of the lava tubes was awe-inspiring, so too were the coloured patterns on the rock formed by calcium (white) and iron ore (burnt orange) leeching out of the basalt volcanic rock.

The next day, we decided to head back to the coast via the Tablelands (having worked out that it didn’t add much more time back to Townsville than the inland route). The benefits of this route was another visit to the wind farm (which I forgot to mention above. I have a child-like fascination with wind farms, perhaps induced by some politician saying he didn’t like the look of them), another dip at Millaa Millaa Falls, a visit to the Mungalli dairy for a creamy froyo and fluffy cheesecake, and spending more time in the rolling green hills with its clear-air views of the mountains.

We spent the afternoon at Etty Beach, where we were promised sightings of a cassowary. And, fortunately, it delivered. The bird was extraordinarily big, and seemed vaguely interested in my embroidery until it realised it wasn’t food. (He would have been more interested in the coconut Dan harvested, if he’d be around when we opened it.) We spent the evening riding the beach track at Kurramine Beach.

Yesterday, Saturday, we headed to Mission Beach, where one of Dan’s Townsville paragliding friends has a kayaking business. He kindly leant us a sea kayak and pointed out the surrounding islands we should explore. And so we did – bundling up a small collection of camping gear in dry bags, and setting off south. We were so blessed – the sun was lighting up the crystal clear sea in all its shades of teal, the wind (against us) was gentle, and the air was so clear that we had beautiful views of Mt Bowen on Hinchinbrook.

We by-passed Dunk Island, stopped for lunch at Timana Island, took a break at Bedarra Island and – exhausted, having done about 15kms – finally made it to Wheeler Island. We set up camp in a small, secluded corner, and did very little while we let our bodies rest. All these islands are stunning – covered in rainforests, lined with granite boulders and inviting beaches, and surrounded by reef. It’s such a special place.

This morning, we rose before dawn and saw the sun rise while we were on the water. The conditions were different – the water was chopping and waves would roll through, and it was overcast for the later morning. But it was still special to be out on the water, begging our weary muscles for a few more strokes.

And so, our travels continue to unfold in strange and unexpected ways.

VREPS

[Mission Beach]

We, you dear reader and I, have a lot of ground to cover.

Dan and I made it back from the outstanding heat of the far north surprisingly quickly. In one day, we got to the banks of the Wenlock River (by the Morton Telegraph Station) via an afternoon jaunt at the sea caves at Captain Billy’s Landing. The next, we rumbled on to Archer Point, just south of Cooktown. Those two days were a blur of air conditioning and great podcasts, and we cheered as we finished with red dust roads and corrugation.

We set off from Archer Point’s windy, grandiose sea views through the Daintree National Park, marvelling again at the impenetrable rainforest, finishing our day on the Daintree River just past the start of the Creb Track. There, we dutifully and lovingly bathed Zeusa, while keeping an eye out for the local salty that the locals told us lived around the bend. Our campsite was an absolute gem, with a riverfront view of a wall of rainforest, set amongst rolling green pastures.

We then made it back to Cairns, via our favourite coffee shop north of Brisbane (Origin at Port Douglas) and, after another long session dusting out the car and gently removing red dust from her crevices, checked into our Palm Cove accommodation for the night. That afternoon, my mum flew in for a few days of adventuring with us, which started with us enjoying all the luxuries of the apartment after more than two weeks on the road.

On Sunday, we set out for the Tablelands, starting with visits to Babinda Boulders and Josephine Falls, and camping at Henrietta Creek. On Monday, we ticked off a large list: the stunning waterfalls on the waterfall circuit, a visit to Yungaburra, an attempted visit to the dairy, and jaunts around the two crater lakes. After that whirlwind, we got Mum to the airport in time, and had a truly delightful evening at the Elias’, catching up on just how much can happen in two weeks.

Dan and I are now back in the rainforest – this time the Misty Mountains. It’s beautifully quiet – we’re the only ones at the campsite – and as it got dark, we’ve been treated to a stunning show of fireflies. There’s something so magical about them, perhaps because I keep thinking of them as Harry-Potter-style animated fairy lights.

As always, I’m filled with gratitude for these experiences. We’ve been dwelling in immense natural beauty for some time now, and it never fails to take my breath away – as does the cold water every time we go for a swim at a waterfall, lake or river.

VREPS

[Misty Mountains]