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I found myself in Brisbane early one December; killing time between winters in New Zealand and Canada. I’d just flown out of New Zealand (without breaking my back) and was staying with friends in their large, timber, porch-laden house along with the three other young bums they had opened their endlessly generous doors to. The difficulty was that while Brisbane is a nice place; it is hardly thrilling. In fact the most interesting thing about Brisbane is the beach resort of Noosa - a two hour drive up the coast.
I spent a couple of weeks tooling about, running on the sea-front, riding pillion on a friends Vespa (we even went to Byron Bay on it), eating burgers with the works in Aussie cafés, going surfing up the coast and generally doing nothing in the sun. But a couple of weeks in and I was getting itchy feet. I had decided that I was going to spend Christmas with my Brisbane buddies, but was railing against the prospect of another three weeks of inactivity.
One day, while poking around my friend’s garden shed, I found a bicycle; an old, yellow road bike, with drop handlebars and ten gears. Buried under several centimetres of dust and cobwebs, with flat tires and rusting wheels, it looked a far from promising steed.
As I stared at it, however, a plan began to slowly formulate. Before I had decided that my life’s calling was that of a snowboard bum, I had worked as a mechanic in a bike shop in Sydney. Casting an expert eye over the beast before me I realised that new tyres, gear and brake cables, some fresh handlebar tape and a rear luggage rack would transform this bike into a vehicle that could carry me hundreds of kilometres. Away from the middle-class civility of Brisbane and on to new and unexpected adventures.
After a brief consultation of a road atlas, I had my plan. I would cycle the 450 km to Bundaberg, stopping en route to walk round Fraser Island for a few days. When I reached Bundaberg I would get a boat to Lady Musgrave Island - a tiny jewel of a desert island at the southernmost tip of the great barrier reef.
It sounded like a grand plan indeed. Little did I know it would show me an Australia that a whole year of living in Sydney had merely hinted at. It would show me its rural heart and its natural beauty. It would show me an Australia that went beyond surfing and smoothies and burgers with the works. Of all the time I would spend in Australia, the next three weeks would be the most inspiring, the most challenging and the most vividly memorable of all.
“You want to what?”
“I want to borrow the bike in your shed to cycle up the coast.”
“That thing? It’s buggered mate. Hasn’t moved in ten years. And you realise it’s the height of summer and this is Queensland? You wouldn’t get me riding a pushy for miles and miles in that sun for all the bloody tea in China.”
Simon indicated the baking afternoon outside the window with a jerk of his thumb.
“Ah, she’ll be right.” I said. Living in Australia for a year had taught me how to negotiate with Australians.
“Well, if that’s what you want to do, you are more than welcome. Where do you want us to send your bleached skeleton?”
A couple of days later I set off; wobbling uncertainly down the road as I got used to the big wheels, drop handlebars and skinny tyres of a road bike. I was a mountain bike man and this was a new experience. I had solved the luggage problem by simply tying a 30 litre daypack to the rear luggage rack I had bought in a bike shop in town. New tyres, tubes, cables and bar tape, along with a good wash, made the bike look quite respectable. I was pleased - for kindly lending me his bike, Simon would get it back fully serviced and ready for action.
I got a little lost on the way out of Brisbane but soon found my way by asking directions. Before long I had picked up a steady pace on the road north and was cruising along with the sun on my back. A little cloud ensured that I was broken into the heat gently. Soon I had arrived at what I had decided would be my destination for the first night - Beerburrum.
Beerburrum was only a short distance from Brisbane but I had decided to stay there for two reasons; firstly, because it is always wise to make your first day a short one and secondly, because the place had ‘beer’ in its name. I believed this could only be a good omen and I had been picturing long, slender glasses, clouded with condensation and filled with golden nectar, for most of the ride. However, I arrived there in the early afternoon, brimming with energy and eagerness and decided I could not stop. Coloundra, therefore, became my first overnight stop of the trip.
The next day gave me a clearer idea of what to expect from cycling in Queensland in December. It was baking hot and football humid (110%). The sweat poured off me as I pedalled resolutely along the simmering tarmac to my destination. As the cars and trucks passed by, they threw up clouds of dust, which stuck to my sticky arms and legs. I got gradually filthier as the day wore on - a feeling I would have to get used to.
I did, however, catch momentary glimpses of Queensland’s beautiful coast. Brief vistas of cool blue water broken by fresh, white surf. It appeared so close, yet so impossibly distant. The sweaty, sticky feeling in my cycling shirt and of the ‘chammy’ inside my shorts cried out to be relieved with a swim in that beautiful ocean. But the road went ever onwards - on to my destination, on over sweltering tarmac and under punishing cobalt skies.
My destination, however, made up for the trial of the journey - it was Noosa, the pretty resort town that lies not far north of Brisbane, on an achingly beautiful stretch of coastline. I camped at ‘Sunrise Beach’ with the door of my tent overlooking the sea. The moon was so bright that night it seemed almost like daylight. The moonlight sparkled on the black water and as the waves foamed on the beach they glowed as though possessed of magical luminosity of their own. Sharp, black shadows from the trees surrounded my tent, quivering as the nocturnal breeze rustled through the leaves that cast them.
I fell asleep to the sound of the crashing surf - a restful roar as infinite as nature and as timeless as the billions of glittering stars above me. My tent door hung open to allow the gentle onshore breeze to cool and caress my muscles, still aching from a day in the saddle. I slept like a man who has travelled a long way - and found the perfect place to rest.
The road north from Noosa to Hervey Bay, where I was to get the ferry across to Fraser Island was, as one would expect, long and hot. I would get up early, as soon as the sweltering sun hit my tent. Each night I would try to pitch it in a place where it would get a little shade in the morning, but soon enough the great yellow bugger would find me - hiding on the westerly side of a hedge, wall or caravan. Within minutes the interior temperature of my tent would rise to gas mark 6 and I would wake, sweating like I was malarial and croaking “Water… water…” It is the only thing that has ever proved unfailingly effective in getting me out of bed in the morning.
Setting off I would suffer those painful few minutes familiar to all cycle tourers, before the bum goes numb again and the aching legs decide to stop complaining and get on with it. By mid morning I would be soaked in sweat and drinking like a fish in attempt to recoup my losses.
Several times I was dive bombed by some unknown bird of prey. Some kind of hawk I think, that seemed to take offence at me being in its territory. They would swoop down on me, crying in anger, and follow me for a couple of minutes, before wheeling off to disappear into the trees.
I don’t know what it was about me; perhaps it was the bicycle, perhaps it was my silver helmet gleaming in the sun. Whatever it was, they hated me. One even sank its claws into my helmet and I rode an erratic course for a hundred yards, the enraged bird attached to my head and huge lorries full of sugar cane roaring past, steering with one hand while beating fruitlessly at my avian attacker with the other. I came very close to looking like the only kangaroo I saw in my entire time in Australia. A huge adult male, it must have measured eight or nine feet from the tip of its tail to the point of its snout. It was also about an inch thick and lying in the middle of the road. It had clearly been hit by a very big truck indeed.
In a tiny place called Tiaro, I camped out the back of the petrol station. That afternoon had been especially hot and humid. The sky, a low grey ceiling of heavy cloud, became darker and more menacing as the day wore on. Some primal instinct told me that a big storm was coming - not the usual heavy rain and occasional clap of thunder - but a real hoolie. A proper end of the world, God is furious, we’re all going to die, Wagneresque meteorological reckoning. I pitched my tent in a sheltered spot and looked up at the darkening sky with trepidation. It was coming - there was nothing I could do but hunker down and wait it out.
I was reading a book by the soft glow of a candle when it came, rolling thunder announcing its arrival. Suddenly the interior of my tent was thrown into sharp relief by a flash of white light. I counted the seconds… one, two, three, four…
BOOM!
The sound subsided slowly, rumbling reluctantly into uncanny silence, followed by the patter of the first rain on my tent.
A second flash floodlit my tiny nylon cell. One, two, three…
BOOM!
Here it came.
The rain became a downpour; the heaviest rain I have ever experienced. It hammered off the tent, battering into the flysheet as though it was trying to tear its way through. I was grateful I had bought a good one, and that it was only a couple of weeks old. Any weakness would have become instantly apparent in the onslaught it was now exposed to.
The lightning became more and more frequent, a flash of white light exploding across the sky every few seconds. The thunder seemed to roll on unbroken - each crackling explosion merging into the next. And all the time the rain came down, an unending torrent of water pounding into the ground, hissing and bubbling in the ever expanding puddles and gurgling noisily in the guttering of the petrol station. Soon, I could feel it pooling under my groundsheet and wondered how long it would take to soak through. I figured I was in for a long and uncomfortable night.
The violence of the storm, however, soon abated. A couple of hours after it had started, the rain petered out and the clouds began to part. An occasional star could be seen amongst the clouds and a fresh breeze blew across the wet grass. Snug in my wonderful, waterproof, storm-proof tent, I fell fast asleep - at least till the sun found me in the morning.
I stepped off the fast ferry to Fraser Island in a town called Kingfisher and walked straight into the bush. A thick green mass of verdant growth bordered the sandy paths that ran through the forest. There was no wind here, under the trees and it was (I can think of no better way of describing it) - stinking hot. When I finally reached Lake McKenzie, the relief of stepping out of the trees and onto a narrow beach by the shores of a cool blue lake was wonderful.
Thick grasses grew in scattered tufts, their tips bent downwards to touch the ground. The wind had jostled them backwards and forwards so that they left perfect arcs described in the white sand. Amongst the grasses, tiny red flowers grew. The water of the lake was such a deep blue as to be almost black and the surrounding foliage the most vibrant green.
That night I lay in my tent and listened to the wind sighing through the trees and the crickets chirruping their unending symphony. I lay a candle on my folded map of the island and read by its softly wavering light. Before long I felt my eyelids droop and leant over to blow out my candle. I was asleep, as they say, before my head hit the pillow.
The following day I walked down past Lake Wabby and through the forest in the direction of the beach. I was about a kilometre from the beach when I walked into the spiders web. I flinched as soon as I felt it cling to my face and shoulders - it seemed absurdly large - as though it was stretched right across the path. But that would make it about four feet wide…
“AAARGH!”
Something was on my face!
A black shape - all articulated legs and fat, shiny abdomen - a wriggling horror from an arachnophobic’s nightmare - it clung to my face over my sunglasses… seemed to be clinging to my forehead and chin at the same time! It must be HUGE!
“AAARGH!” I said again.
With a deft flick, I swept both sunglasses and Shelob off my face with my open palm. Manfully fighting off the desire to clench my hands together under my chin and scream like a little girl, I peered down into the undergrowth at my attacker. I was pleased to see that she was every bit the monster I had suspected her to be when she was wrapped around my face - no doubt milliseconds from sinking her poisonous fangs into me.
I shuddered at the thought that, had I been a little slower, she might have succeeded in biting me. Given her size, ugliness and general demeanour; my distant O-Grade in Biology and a childhood spent engrossed in Willard Price books; I knew that if she had, I would have staggered 10 feet, let out a bloodcurdling scream and expired instantly in tortured rigor on the forest floor.
At last I regained my composure and carried on, a little more slowly now, towards the beach. In the next couple of days I would walk over sand dunes, along a vast beach, see a three foot long guana, sandy coves and clear blue seas. I’d see Lake Boomanjin where the water is the colour of tea and other lakes named Birabeen and Jennings, then wander around Wanggoolba Creek and back past Lake McKenzie to Kingfisher. Twists and turns and ups and downs, beaches and forests, sea and sky. In all I would walk 100km in four days in a pair of old skate shoes. It gave me a blister the size and juiciness of a ripe watermelon - and an overwhelming sense of relaxation.
Back on the mainland I picked up my bike again and set off for Bundaberg. Two more days of riding and I’d be at my destination. This part of the trip took me into areas more run down and fly-blown. Small outback villages crouched by the roadside like lampreys, feeding from the scraps of the passing trade. Each little village had its own pub, with a corrugated iron roof to magnify the sound of the rain. Roof fans sliced the humid air into descending waves of sickly heat.
Outside, in the baking streets, rusting Holden pick ups sank slowly into the dust and men with the sleeves torn off their cowboy shirts swore at their enormous wives. Car loads of ‘yahoos’ would shout unintelligibly at me as they roared past, like feral dogs barking at a bicycle. The ‘campsite’ I stayed at the night before I reached Bundaberg was in reality a trailer-park. When I asked how much it was to pitch a tent the guy at reception didn’t have a clue, so he went through the back to ask. A disembodied voice shouted back:
“Pitch a tent? I dunno. Ten bucks?”
I was clearly the first person who’d ever actually wanted to camp there. Later on I found out why, as a wild mêlée of screaming arguments and barking dogs kept me awake into the small hours.
I stepped from the catamaran which had brought me from Bundaberg onto a small aluminium pontoon moored about 50 yards from the white coral beach that circled Lady Musgrave Island. A small motor launch would take me the final stretch. As I sat in the launch while it chugged slowly to the beach, I thought about what the man in the Tourist Information office had said about the place.
“Lady Musgrave is a beautiful spot, mate. We allow a maximum of 50 people on it at any one time, the only building is a toilet block, you’ll have to camp… you have got a tent and all that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There is no fresh water… don’t worry, I can lend you a couple of jerry cans you can fill up and take with you. The place is totally unspoilt and completely beautiful.” There was that word again. “Its pretty small though, you can walk round it in 45 minutes.”
“Sounds great. How much is it to camp there?”
“Three bucks fifty.”
I nearly laughed. To think there were people who’d spend hundreds to sleep in a silly room in a posh hotel. OK, the catamaran trip was 100 bucks, but the island was two hours from the coast. It sounded like my perfect island.
A second flash floodlit my tiny nylon cell. One, two, three…
BOOM!
Here it came.
The rain became a downpour; the heaviest rain I have ever experienced. It hammered off the tent, battering into the flysheet as though it was trying to tear its way through. I was grateful I had bought a good one, and that it was only a couple of weeks old. Any weakness would have become instantly apparent in the onslaught it was now exposed to.
The lightning became more and more frequent, a flash of white light exploding across the sky every few seconds. The thunder seemed to roll on unbroken - each crackling explosion merging into the next. And all the time the rain came down, an unending torrent of water pounding into the ground, hissing and bubbling in the ever expanding puddles and gurgling noisily in the guttering of the petrol station. Soon, I could feel it pooling under my groundsheet and wondered how long it would take to soak through. I figured I was in for a long and uncomfortable night.
The violence of the storm, however, soon abated. A couple of hours after it had started, the rain petered out and the clouds began to part. An occasional star could be seen amongst the clouds and a fresh breeze blew across the wet grass. Snug in my wonderful, waterproof, storm-proof tent, I fell fast asleep - at least till the sun found me in the morning.
I stepped off the fast ferry to Fraser Island in a town called Kingfisher and walked straight into the bush. A thick green mass of verdant growth bordered the sandy paths that ran through the forest. There was no wind here, under the trees and it was (I can think of no better way of describing it) - stinking hot. When I finally reached Lake McKenzie, the relief of stepping out of the trees and onto a narrow beach by the shores of a cool blue lake was wonderful.
Thick grasses grew in scattered tufts, their tips bent downwards to touch the ground. The wind had jostled them backwards and forwards so that they left perfect arcs described in the white sand. Amongst the grasses, tiny red flowers grew. The water of the lake was such a deep blue as to be almost black and the surrounding foliage the most vibrant green.
That night I lay in my tent and listened to the wind sighing through the trees and the crickets chirruping their unending symphony. I lay a candle on my folded map of the island and read by its softly wavering light. Before long I felt my eyelids droop and leant over to blow out my candle. I was asleep, as they say, before my head hit the pillow.
The following day I walked down past Lake Wabby and through the forest in the direction of the beach. I was about a kilometre from the beach when I walked into the spiders web. I flinched as soon as I felt it cling to my face and shoulders - it seemed absurdly large - as though it was stretched right across the path. But that would make it about four feet wide…
“AAARGH!”
Something was on my face!
A black shape - all articulated legs and fat, shiny abdomen - a wriggling horror from an arachnophobic’s nightmare - it clung to my face over my sunglasses… seemed to be clinging to my forehead and chin at the same time! It must be HUGE!
“AAARGH!” I said again.
With a deft flick, I swept both sunglasses and Shelob off my face with my open palm. Manfully fighting off the desire to clench my hands together under my chin and scream like a little girl, I peered down into the undergrowth at my attacker. I was pleased to see that she was every bit the monster I had suspected her to be when she was wrapped around my face - no doubt milliseconds from sinking her poisonous fangs into me.
I shuddered at the thought that, had I been a little slower, she might have succeeded in biting me. Given her size, ugliness and general demeanour; my distant O-Grade in Biology and a childhood spent engrossed in Willard Price books; I knew that if she had, I would have staggered 10 feet, let out a bloodcurdling scream and expired instantly in tortured rigor on the forest floor.
At last I regained my composure and carried on, a little more slowly now, towards the beach. In the next couple of days I would walk over sand dunes, along a vast beach, see a three foot long guana, sandy coves and clear blue seas. I’d see Lake Boomanjin where the water is the colour of tea and other lakes named Birabeen and Jennings, then wander around Wanggoolba Creek and back past Lake McKenzie to Kingfisher. Twists and turns and ups and downs, beaches and forests, sea and sky. In all I would walk 100km in four days in a pair of old skate shoes. It gave me a blister the size and juiciness of a ripe watermelon - and an overwhelming sense of relaxation.
Back on the mainland I picked up my bike again and set off for Bundaberg. Two more days of riding and I’d be at my destination. This part of the trip took me into areas more run down and fly-blown. Small outback villages crouched by the roadside like lampreys, feeding from the scraps of the passing trade. Each little village had its own pub, with a corrugated iron roof to magnify the sound of the rain. Roof fans sliced the humid air into descending waves of sickly heat.
Outside, in the baking streets, rusting Holden pick ups sank slowly into the dust and men with the sleeves torn off their cowboy shirts swore at their enormous wives. Car loads of ‘yahoos’ would shout unintelligibly at me as they roared past, like feral dogs barking at a bicycle. The ‘campsite’ I stayed at the night before I reached Bundaberg was in reality a trailer-park. When I asked how much it was to pitch a tent the guy at reception didn’t have a clue, so he went through the back to ask. A disembodied voice shouted back:
“Pitch a tent? I dunno. Ten bucks?”
I was clearly the first person who’d ever actually wanted to camp there. Later on I found out why, as a wild mêlée of screaming arguments and barking dogs kept me awake into the small hours.
I stepped from the catamaran which had brought me from Bundaberg onto a small aluminium pontoon moored about 50 yards from the white coral beach that circled Lady Musgrave Island. A small motor launch would take me the final stretch. As I sat in the launch while it chugged slowly to the beach, I thought about what the man in the Tourist Information office had said about the place.
“Lady Musgrave is a beautiful spot, mate. We allow a maximum of 50 people on it at any one time, the only building is a toilet block, you’ll have to camp… you have got a tent and all that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There is no fresh water… don’t worry, I can lend you a couple of jerry cans you can fill up and take with you. The place is totally unspoilt and completely beautiful.” There was that word again. “Its pretty small though, you can walk round it in 45 minutes.”
“Sounds great. How much is it to camp there?”
“Three bucks fifty.”
I nearly laughed. To think there were people who’d spend hundreds to sleep in a silly room in a posh hotel. OK, the catamaran trip was 100 bucks, but the island was two hours from the coast. It sounded like my perfect island.
The white beach was made up from small lumps of broken coral that shone blindingly in the sun. A little way from where the aquamarine sea lapped and gurgled, palm trees hung limp in the noon-day sun. Underneath their fronds was a gentle covering of shaded greenery - enough to make the place feel like a verdant tropical paradise, but not so much as to get in your way.
I pitched my tent next to a few others that were already there and went exploring. The man in the tourist office had been right. The place really was beautiful. I couldn’t help feeling that it was the limited human impact that made it so. No billionaire’s private island with its steel and glass designer home, helipad and manicured gardens could ever come close to the natural beauty of this tiny, lonely island at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef.
Impatient to get in the water, I returned to my tent and picked up my hired snorkelling equipment. The island proved as beautiful under the water as it was above it. A myriad of colours in fish and coral. Endless varieties of marine life cruised, darted and wafted before me. Suddenly, a few metres to my left, a huge ray, easily four feet across, flew majestically past. How could this day get any better?
That evening, after a basic dinner cooked on a camping stove, I decided to go for a walk round the island. Some of the other campers, a marine biological expedition from Sydney University, had said I would be able to see giant Green and Leatherback turtles coming up the beach to lay their eggs. Indeed, the purpose of their expedition was to study them. I admit I was a little sceptical. Giant turtles laying their eggs? That kind of thing was surely reserved for the David Attenboroughs of this world.
“No mate. Seriously. Take a walk about sunset. You’ll see loads.” Said one muscular Australian youth with leisurely hair and lifetime tan. So I did. As the sun set (a few clouds appeared, just to accentuate the gorgeousness of the moment - they would be gone before the stars came out), I set off around the island. I got about halfway round without seeing anything, and was starting to think I was being wound up, when I spotted a large dark shape disappearing into the surf. Running forward I saw that it was a huge leatherback turtle, almost four feet long. Its bulbous shell was speckled with barnacles, giving it an aura of great age and enormous mileage.
Soon it had gone, however, and I hurried on, hoping to catch another turtle in the act of laying. And sure enough, just a hundred yards away, I saw what I had been hoping to see: a turtle in the act of laying. She had dug a deep hole in the sand and was now filling it with sticky white ping-pong balls. I watched mesmerised, realising I was incredibly lucky to be seeing this extraordinary moment in nature. I wondered how far this turtle had swum to get to this spot. What adventures had happened to her on her journey. I wondered how many years she had been coming to this island and whether she would make it back next year. As she began to slowly and inefficiently fill her hole with sand, I left and returned to where I was camped.
The marine biological expedition from Sydney University were having a fancy dress cocktail evening and invited me to join them for some slightly fruity and extremely alcoholic drinks. As I sat in a folding chair, sucking something vaguely pleasant, but no substitute for cold beer, out of half a coconut, I reflected on what a perfect day it had been. I was in a beautiful place, had seen some extraordinary things and seemed to have made some great new friends in these Aussie marine biologists.
A unsteady lad with a few days growth of beard, badly applied lipstick and wearing a cocktail dress several sizes too small for him, collapsed heavily into the chair next to mine.
“Alright mate?” He said.
“Yes, very. This is, um… interesting stuff.” I waved my coconut in his direction.
“Yes.” He regarded his own coconut as though seeing it for the first time.
“So, you’re with this expedition from Sydney Uni?”
“Yup.”
“Must be great. I went to Inverness on my university field trip. My name’s Matt. What’ s yours?”
“Me?” He grinned at me through his lipstick. “My names Sasha.”
“Ha ha ha! No really, when you're not dressed as a woman?”
The grin vanished.
“No. My name really is Sasha.”
Oh well, I was in a beautiful place and had seen some extraordinary things. Two out of three wasn’t bad.
I pitched my tent next to a few others that were already there and went exploring. The man in the tourist office had been right. The place really was beautiful. I couldn’t help feeling that it was the limited human impact that made it so. No billionaire’s private island with its steel and glass designer home, helipad and manicured gardens could ever come close to the natural beauty of this tiny, lonely island at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef.
Impatient to get in the water, I returned to my tent and picked up my hired snorkelling equipment. The island proved as beautiful under the water as it was above it. A myriad of colours in fish and coral. Endless varieties of marine life cruised, darted and wafted before me. Suddenly, a few metres to my left, a huge ray, easily four feet across, flew majestically past. How could this day get any better?
That evening, after a basic dinner cooked on a camping stove, I decided to go for a walk round the island. Some of the other campers, a marine biological expedition from Sydney University, had said I would be able to see giant Green and Leatherback turtles coming up the beach to lay their eggs. Indeed, the purpose of their expedition was to study them. I admit I was a little sceptical. Giant turtles laying their eggs? That kind of thing was surely reserved for the David Attenboroughs of this world.
“No mate. Seriously. Take a walk about sunset. You’ll see loads.” Said one muscular Australian youth with leisurely hair and lifetime tan. So I did. As the sun set (a few clouds appeared, just to accentuate the gorgeousness of the moment - they would be gone before the stars came out), I set off around the island. I got about halfway round without seeing anything, and was starting to think I was being wound up, when I spotted a large dark shape disappearing into the surf. Running forward I saw that it was a huge leatherback turtle, almost four feet long. Its bulbous shell was speckled with barnacles, giving it an aura of great age and enormous mileage.
Soon it had gone, however, and I hurried on, hoping to catch another turtle in the act of laying. And sure enough, just a hundred yards away, I saw what I had been hoping to see: a turtle in the act of laying. She had dug a deep hole in the sand and was now filling it with sticky white ping-pong balls. I watched mesmerised, realising I was incredibly lucky to be seeing this extraordinary moment in nature. I wondered how far this turtle had swum to get to this spot. What adventures had happened to her on her journey. I wondered how many years she had been coming to this island and whether she would make it back next year. As she began to slowly and inefficiently fill her hole with sand, I left and returned to where I was camped.
The marine biological expedition from Sydney University were having a fancy dress cocktail evening and invited me to join them for some slightly fruity and extremely alcoholic drinks. As I sat in a folding chair, sucking something vaguely pleasant, but no substitute for cold beer, out of half a coconut, I reflected on what a perfect day it had been. I was in a beautiful place, had seen some extraordinary things and seemed to have made some great new friends in these Aussie marine biologists.
A unsteady lad with a few days growth of beard, badly applied lipstick and wearing a cocktail dress several sizes too small for him, collapsed heavily into the chair next to mine.
“Alright mate?” He said.
“Yes, very. This is, um… interesting stuff.” I waved my coconut in his direction.
“Yes.” He regarded his own coconut as though seeing it for the first time.
“So, you’re with this expedition from Sydney Uni?”
“Yup.”
“Must be great. I went to Inverness on my university field trip. My name’s Matt. What’ s yours?”
“Me?” He grinned at me through his lipstick. “My names Sasha.”
“Ha ha ha! No really, when you're not dressed as a woman?”
The grin vanished.
“No. My name really is Sasha.”
Oh well, I was in a beautiful place and had seen some extraordinary things. Two out of three wasn’t bad.
