Posted on July 19, 2026 by freestateofjen

GO

The smart arse I’m married to took this photo as he played Go by Chemical Brothers on his phone. “Got the right shoes on?” He asked. “You’ll be fine.” He added, and dropped in a stupid bird noise. I was actually trying to get as far away as I could from him by the end of the song. Not because he was trying to murder me and make me into human jerky, but because I wanted to finally finish The Cooloola Great Walk. I’d tried to do it twice before. Once, I never even started it because it got shut down due to a massive bushfire, and the second time I got sick after the first day and had to walk back out to the road I wasn’t sure was there along a firebreak I wasn’t mean to be walking on (UMMMAAARR). Then, there were the other two times I’d tried to hike/bike in the Cooloola area: once along the Wilderness Trail, and once along Teewah beach. Both times were pretty horrendous. I almost froze solid on the banks of the Noosa River when I was on the Wildernss Trail because I didn’t bring a sleeping bag, and the road the smart arse was meant to drive on to pick me up was blocked by a gate that wasn’t on the map. Then, on the bike ride, I didn’t factor the wind into my plan. When I crossed over onto Teewah beach from Rainbow Beach I discovered I couldn’t pedal because the wind was so strong, so I pushed the bike for 17km before spending a miserable night in the dunes, then getting picked up by some randoms while still pushing my bike the next day. This time everything worked out and that bloody smart arse was actually correct when he said at the beginning that I’d be fine.

Cooloola Great walk:

Day1: Carlo – Kauri 15.2km

Day 2: Kauri – Littoria 20.5km (HARDEST)

Day 3: Littoria – Dutgee 14.8km

Day 4: Dutgeee – Brahminy 20.3km

Day 5: Brahminy – end 19.7km (EASIEST)

On day one, somewhere on the path to Kauri

I saw quite a few other people on the track. Some of them were doing the walk too, some in the same direction as me (N-S) and others going the other way (S-N) and others were doing side sections as day walks. Aside from a small number of people, mostly, everyone I came across wasn’t particularly friendly. They weren’t horrible, but trying to talk to them was like that feeling you get when you try to make the wrong sides of velcro stick together; it just doesn’t work, so I pretty much stuck to myself aside from when I met James at Kauri (he was just finishing), and then Craig on the track as I was approaching the end of the hike (he’d just started). Both dudes were really friendly and easy to get along with and we shared details and promised to stay in touch. Craig was closest in age to me and we both had a similar way of life in that we are both fulltime adventurers. I very quickly felt like he was my new best friend as we sat in the middle of the track sharing stories of hikes done and adventures to come. These guys made me feel the same way as when I met my tribe on the Great Ocean Walk in Victoria in April:

I think another lesson is about My Tribe. I’ve been looking for these people almost all my life and I could never find them. I think I finally found them: other hikers. Being with the eight other hikers I met on the GOW, even though we only gathered together at the end of each day, gave me sense of camerarderie I haven’t found elsewhwere. I very much felt that I belonged to these people, they to me and all of us to the trail. It was as though we shared a unspoken secret unavailable to everyday people.

The walk to Littoria was the hardest day. The map says it’s 20.5km, but it felt more like 24-25km,but it could have been all the hills. The whole entire thing was pretty uphill, and that’s really tiring walking, but I prefer it to going endlessly downhill with a pack on. It’s annoying walking downhill for kilometre after kilometre because you have to really think about what you’re doing and watch not just your next foot fall, but the track to come. On a steep climb, it’s ok to just look at your feet because your momentum is much slower and you’re leaning closer to the ground. That’s opposite for walking downhil. Walking downhill is far more dangerous for tripping, slipping and face-planting it.

I slept fine on the first night, but I found it almost impossible to sleep for the rest of the hike. It was because my entire body was killing me from the relentless slogging. Also, because there’s not much to do at the camp once you’ve set up and had your dinner, it’s bed time by around 6.30pm. That’s a lot of hours to lay on the ground. Thank god I bought a decent sleep mat after the GOW. I read in the tent for a few hours before trying to get to sleep, but then the need to pee strikes, which necessitates an extremely annoying extraction from the tent into the rain, then back into the tent to begin the unbelievably difficult process of getting everything unbunched, zipped up and settled in only to have to repeat the same thing twice more before the night is over. When I did manage to sleep for what felt like five minutes here and there, I had the most insane dreams. One night I dreamt I was really stoned from smoking too much marajuana (I don’t smoke this stuff. I hate the smell of it) and in the dream someone asked me what I was doing. I told them I had to smoke it because I was in so much pain. You know you’ve got next level pain when you dream about being in pain. Like dreaming about having headache to wake up and realise that you do actually have a headache.

Some campsites had cheeky possums and bushrats. I’m always wary of these buggers. A bushrat chewed through my hiking tent years ago on the Conondale Ranges Great Walk. I was not impressed. There are timber platforms and lockboxes on the Cooloola Great Walk, so wildlife can’t steal your stuff, but I left a water bottle next to my tent door incase I wanted a drink overnight. In the morning I got up to see that a bushrat had chewed into the lid. Why!! It’s not edible for crying out loud. I can’t whinge too much. It only cost $1.10 (I only use Coles brand mineral water bottles for hiking: they weigh almost nothing and I can keep reusing them, then just chuck them in the recycle bin when they get too old. I refuse to get caught up in the idea that I need to spend $25 on a fancy water bottle). I also saw sugar gliders, a huge red bellied black snake, bush turkeys, kingfishers and heard woompoo fruit doves calling.

Dutgee was the best spot of all, even though the walk into the campsite was pretty crappy. It’s through a swamp and some dickheads on trail bikes had come through the track and made it even harder to walk on. Man, if I could just get a hold of these wankers! I don’t fucking get them. They’ve got miles and miles of roads and sand tracks to ride on, but they’ve gotta go on a dedicated hiking track. I saw a sticker online today that kind of sums up how I felt about it:

Dutgee was right on the Noosa River, so I went for a swim as soon as I arrived, which was extremely cold, but felt great. I nabbed the best campsite too because in the lockbox someone had left four tins of chicken meat. Score! I’d never eaten tinned chicken before, but I cracked one straight open and ate the whole thing in one mouthful. It tasted exactly the same as tinned tuna, but a different texture: kind of disgusting, but I was starving hungry, so I was very grateful. It just meant I had to carry the empty tin out with me, but that’s the price you pay for being a garbage guts and I’m ok with that. I actually ate 3 of the tins, and left one in the lock box.

Dutgee campsite. Lockbox and wooden platform in foreground.

The walk out of Dutgee was really nice because some of it was along the Noosa River. I was a bit worried about it though, not just because it was another long day, but because I had to cross the Cooloola Sandpatch. I wasn’t sure how easy this would be because it’s a massive desert-like bowl of sand in the middle of nowhere and I’d heard it can be difficult to see where you’re meant to go to get across it. I’d brought my compass, like the map said you should do, but I didn’t end up needing it. The sandpatch was the highlight of the trip. I could’ve easily spent an entire day there clambering around, and I fantasised how I could come back and do just that at some point in the future. My mates on the trail bikes had done some work here too, even though QPWS had put in a gate and a cavaletti to keep them out.

This tree was likely part of the forest engulfed by the mobile sand many years ago.

The last day was the nicest part of the walk. There were some great views and the vegetation was really beautiful. It was also the easiest section of the whole hike.

At one point I walked past the track to the Teewah landing. When I was in my teens I was with my friends on this track when we’d come to Teewah for a family holiday. We were chatting and laughing away and all of a sudden a naked man appeared on the track some distance ahead of us, walking in our direction. All he was carrying was a small orange life jacket. We all immediately shut up and looked at each other wondering what the fuck he was doing and what was going to happen when we had to walk past him. It was truly weird, but I found it so hard to keep from laughing. I had to stare at the ground because I knew if I looked at anyone I’d start laughing and not be able to stop. As he approached us, he slid the life jacket over his privates, walked past and slid the life jacket over his backside, and kept walking, like nothing weird was going on at all. Where was he going! And what the hell was he doing with the life jacket! We all wondered what would happen when we saw him on our return trip, but who knows where he went because we didn’t see him again. It was a source of great hilarity for the rest of the trip and for many years afterwards. This happened like 30 years ago and I still wonder from time to time what the fuck he was doing with the life jacket, just carrying it like that for no reason, with no boat in sight. I mean, yeah, it was weird him being naked like that in the middle of nowhere, but the life jacket? What the hell!

Close to the end the trail went out onto the beach, but I DID NOT want to walk on the beach because walking on the beach into the wind, with boots and a big pack on your back sucks, so I stayed on the road and kept going that way. I planned to get back on the trail when I saw where it cut back across the road from the beach, but I walked straight past it. Lucky, because otherwise I would never have found this hiking Lego man, who was waiting for me on the side of the road:

A gift from the hiking gods: a Lego hiker

GO GO GO
GO GO GO
Just do your best
This is not a test
This is your life
Send your body to flight

It Started With This:

Posted on April 3, 2026 by freestateofjen

I asked my Uncle Cameron (UC) to take a photo of me on the trailhead of the Great Ocean Walk (GOW), and later I disovered this nugget as I scrolled through the photos I’d taken during the day. See, he’s not really my uncle. He actually belongs to the Cool Guy I’m Married to, but because I don’t have any uncles of my own, I’ve decided he’s now my uncle and his wife is now my aunty. She doesn’t look anything like this though, which is a good thing, because there’s only so much you can put up with. Without UC I wouldn’t have made it to the trail or back from the trail, so even though he’s a complete unit, I’m glad I’ve got him on my team.

I hadn’t done any hiking for a couple of years because I got into mountain biking, plus I was busy and probably a bit lazy, and maybe, just maybe I’d developed a bit of an ‘attitude’ which basically said, what’s the point of even bothering. But after my last work contract finished I decided I wasn’t going to get another job and there was no way I was going to sit around on my arse being sad and lonely, I was going to get right back into being properly awesome by taking on some adventures. I also accepted that there really is no point to pretty much everything, not in a nihilistic way, but just because that’s life isn’t it? The only point to stuff is the point (meaning) we give it, so time to get on with shit because all of us only have one life.

I decided to do the GOW because it would be a dffierent kind of challenge: my first interstate hike. I’ve hiked a lot in Queensland (QLD or Qld), but never anywhere else. In Qld I can get ‘rescued’, but in other states, the options for that are fairly limited. Plus, the GOW was only 100km and the distances for each day were very short, averaging 12.5km/day. Piece of piss, I thought. Yeah, good one dickhead! As if. The whole hike was pretty much the entire opposite of a piece of piss. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because almost the whole thing is either vertically up or vertically down or trudging through deep sand on a beach while you dodge the ocean. I remember the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk being difficult because of the terrain, but I’m not sure it was as hard as the GOW.

The GOW starts in Apollo Bay and ends at the Twelve Apostles. It’s 100km and takes eight days to complete. I carried everything I needed for the seven nights and eight days, but each campsite had water tanks with rain water, so I replenished my water supply every night. Everyone else I met on the trail filtered their water, but I didn’t bother even though the signs said you had to. I drink unfiltered rain water at home because that’s all we’ve got and I’m not dead yet.

I loved this section. Not all of the trail is hardened, but some of it has constructions, like planks, stairs and bridges to reduce the impacts on ecologically sensitive areas.

Cape Otway Lighthouse 3rd day. I stayed in the keeper’s cottage accomodation here.

I saw two koalas, one at Elliot Ridge and one at Blanket Bay. At Elliot Ridge he/she was in the undergrowth right next to my tent and it climbed up a tree as I watched it. I didn’t get a photo of the Blanket Bay koala. I actually thought it was a dog because it was walking along the middle of a road and I wondered, Who brings a dog to a national park and lets it wander around off lead? I hadn’t seen a koala since I was on a field trip for uni back in 2009, so I was pretty excited about it.

Johanna Beach, 5th day. There were two really hard days and this was one of them. It was the best campsite on the whole hike though, so that kinda made up for it, but not really. I still lost my shit halfway along the beach, shouting at the sky, “What the actual fuck!?”

Marc & Suzy from Taranaki in NZ, Mark & Karen from Gympie in QLD, Zoe from Germany. Missing from photo: Alexia from California in the USA, Clay & Shararay from Sydney and Newcastle in NSW, and me – I’m behind the camera, but you can see my Trangia on the RHS of the table. EVERYONE ELSE had a Jetboil)

The cool thing about this hike was the shelter shed at each campsite. The Great Walks in QLD don’t have these. At the end of the day the other hikers who all happened to be on the hike at the same time all congregated in the shelter shed to chat and cook their dinner. I’d never experienced anything like this before. In fact, I’d never had the chance to make friends with anyone else on any trail I’d ever hiked or ridden. It was great to talk to everyone else about different gear and we all swapped tips and tricks. Clay gave me lots of food and on the last night everyone shared their leftover extras. Of course I didn’t have anything to share because I am eterenally hungry, so I ate every single thing I could get my hands on including the wild blackberries growing along much of the track. I should probably pack more food. It’s just hard to find packable stuff that I can imagine my future self eating. I fucking hate meusli bars, like really hate them and I can never come up with any breakfast alternatives because I don’t drink dairy milk, so can’t put the powdered version in meusli. I’ve tried powdered coconut milk, but ugh, kill me now. This was the first hike I bought freeze dried meals for. I liked them (mostly), but they weren’t enough to fill me up and I can’t come at buying two meals for each night because they’re $25 each. Argh!

I asked the Trail Gods of the GOW to teach me something I needed to know, something profound and fundamental. Lessons will roll in over time, but the first came early: stop being a tightarse. I learnt this because I was hungry all day everyday: I was too tight to buy better snacks and more food for my evening meals. I learnt this because I was uncomfortable and freezing cold everynight: I’ve always been too tight to buy a proper sleeping mat. Everyone else I met had insulated sleeping mats they’d paid several hundred dollars for. Not me, mine cost $30 on Temu. That’s why I was cold. Also, my pillow wouldn’t inflate: I tried to avoid paying the retail price for a new Sea to Summit pillow, so bought a cheap one on Ebay and the valve was broken. Sure, I got a refund when I got back home, but that didn’t help me on the trail for seven nights without a pillow. I was also cold because I didn’t have a proper jacket. Everyone else I met had puffer jackets. I’ve always been too tight to buy one of these because they are so expensive. I also thought they were too bulky, but Marc from NZ said, “no, you just shove it in between all the other stuff in your pack and it’ll fit bcause you’ve always got space in between everything else.”

I think another lesson is about My Tribe. I’ve been looking for these people almost all my life and I could never find them. I think I finally found them: other hikers. Being with the eight other hikers I met on the GOW, even though we only gathered together at the end of each day, gave me sense of camerarderie I haven’t found elsewhwere. I very much felt that I belonged to these people, they to me and all of us to the trail. It was as though we shared a unspoken secret unavailable to everyday people. I said to them, “I feel like I’ve known all of you for my whole life.”

Even though the hike was hard, it was also really good. I got to see some great stuff and I learnt some new shit about myself: I can get blown over by the wind. This happened on the last day and I never thought it was possible. I really can start a conversation with absolutley anyone: at the Twelve Apostles visitor centre some very large and beautifully attired black people lined up to have one of their group take a photo of them. “You guys look amazing! Where are you from?” I asked. “We are from Congo,” The biggest man said. “Oh, Congo! That’s so cool! I had a dog called Congo, you know, after the movie.” “Oh yes, I know it,” he replied smiling and giggling. It was great. I wanted to take my own photo of them, but I thought that might be a bit weird.

Some of our packs at the Twelve Apostles Visitors Centre. Mine is the 3rd from left.

Zoe in foreground cooking two minute noodles on her Jetboil at the Twelve Apostles Visitors Centre. In background is Alexia, Karen & Mark: all of them my new best friends. These guys were waiting for a bus and I was waiting for Uncle Cameron to pick me up. Some of them were continuing onto another hike, some were going back to work and I was going with UC to the closest Chinese restaurant via McDonalds, even though I’d eaten a sandwich, a big meat pie and drank a long black coffee at the visitors centre.

It all ended with something Alexia said:

THE TRAIL PROVIDES

The Unexpected Outcomes of Basically Everything

Posted on August 9, 2025 by freestateofjen

At the end of July I decided to go on a trip to the Glasshouse Mountains with my bike to see what adventures would unfold. I thought I’d hike a bit, ride a bit and spend four days driving around looking for cool places to explore. I planned to end this trip with a stay at Noosa with one of my good friends. I never made it to Noosa because the trip didn’t go quite the way I thought it would, but then, isn’t that just the underlying principle of adventure? You just never know what is going to happen next.

Mount Coonowrin on the right and I think it’s Mount Tibrogargan on the left

Straight away I headed to Mt Coonowrin. I wasn’t sure if you could hike around it or if there was a way to ride in the forest surrounding it, but the best way to find out seemed to be to drive there and check it out, so that’s what I did, and I got the bike out and started riding.

After about two minutes of riding I came across two people in the bush just standing there. I said hi because there was no way to avoid them and they started talking. I couldn’t just ride on past because the track was really narrow and the man was standing right in my way, so I was stuck. If I’m honest, I felt a bit trapped because the woman had migrated to stand sort of behind me and the whole time he was talking, the man kept migrating incrementally closer to me until he was pretty much straddling my front wheel. I really, really wanted to get the fuck away from them because they had some “interesting” ideas about the way the world works, like how if you just completely focus on something you can have whatever you want, and if you keep focussing on it, you’ll be happy forever. Plus, the man kept going on and on about how intuitive he was and started asking me all these weird questions about stuff that strangers probably shouldn’t really care about. The Jesus talk started not long after that. My brain came up with a plan on its own for my defence if he got any weirder. It involved me picking the bike up and chucking it at him or using it as a weapon in the same way you might wield a chair in a bar fight, but fortunatley it didn’t come to that! It’s good to know I’ve got options though, right? Plus, I’m fitter than just about everyone, so I knew I could outrun them straight up the side of the mountain if I had to.

I have made a big effort in the last year or so not to be judgemental, but when I hear people talking this kind of batshit crazy stuff I wonder if I’ve gotten anywhere at all with my efforts to not think negatively of people! Later on, when I was writing about my day in an adventure journal I keep, I called them Track Freaks. I’ve rarely encountered freaks like this in the middle of nowhere, aside from one time in my teens, I was on a hike near Teewah with a group of mates and a totally naked man appeared on the track ahead of us. He walked straight past us as though we weren’t even there and just kept on walking. What the fuck was he doing! We couldn’t stop laughing, but it did kind of freak us out and we all wondered what would happen on our return hike (it was one track in and out), but we didn’t see him again. Where exactly did he go? Then, another time on the Cooloola Wilderness Trail another lone hiker appeared out of nowhere and as I passed right by him I said, “Hi, how’s it going? How far have you come today?” only for him to just stare straight ahead as though I wasn’t even there at all. Perhaps a clothed iteration of the naked Teewah hiker? Now, that proper freaked me out! As I hiked on I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following me.

After the Track Freaks I rode on up the hill, but it ended up going nowhere. I was excited about riding at speed all the way back down the massive hill, but most of the surface was too loose for that: loose piglet sized mini boulders, huge ruts, erosion and a general mess. I didn’t fancy washing out on that kind of jaggedy shit. I’m not really sure how anyone rides on this kind of surface. After I got back to the car I headed over to Mt Beerwah thinking I could climb it. Haha! Funny!

When I got there I decided I would do it. I’m not a huge fan of heights, but I am always worried about becoming a wuss, so after a minute or so, I decided that no, I should do it considering I’d come all this way, and besides, I thought it looked really similar to Mt Walsh and I’d climed that several times, once on my own. But then, the voice of reason rose up and said, yeah, but Mt Walsh isn’t as steep and it also has ropes and handholds. If you do this and fall off, how is that smart, especially given that the sign says that you’re not meant to do it on your own? I then decided that yes, it was probably a dumb idea to do this on my own at this point, so I went back down to the carpark not entirely happy that I’d “wussed out”, but 100% happy that I didn’t fall off a mountain and need rescuing. That’s my worst fear.

I’d met a lady earlier that day at a cafe in Glasshouse who had actually fallen off a mountain. She had a cast on her leg and I’d been sitting there for ages wrestling with myself about asking her if I could sign it. Eventually I went over her table, where she sat with a group of friends, laughing and chatting. I was worried they’d look at me like I’d wanted to look at the Track Freaks, but she didn’t yell at me or laugh at me, she was actually very excited about having me sign her leg. I asked her how she did it and then I wrote “she went wild” on her cast. She didn’t get resuced. She told me that she hobbled the 2km back to the carpark.

A massive python on the track. It was a thick as my forearm. It must’ve been more than 6ft long.

In the spirit of smooshing as much as possible into one day I continued onto Mt Tibrogargan and did the 4km hike around the base of it. I noticed on the trailhead map that there was a track for mountainbiking, which I got excited about. After I got back from the hike I was tempted to do the ride, but it was getting late in the afternoon and the voice of reason said, come back and do it tomorrow. You’ll have more time and it’ll be more fun that way.

I went instead to Ewen Maddock dam because I’d heard it was a cool place to ride, but I didn’t realise it was a loop and there was an actual trail head, so I only did a little bit of one section. The bike also got really muddy here, which I was less than impressed about seeing that I had to sleep next to it in the back of the van that night. I managed to wash most of the mud off with water from my water bottles, so it wasn’t really worth getting so ticked off about at all. It’s hard for me to know when to stop, so even though it was getting dark, I decided I’d go and check out some of the rest of the trail on foot, then get back in the car and continue onto a park that was meant to have a good swimming spot. When I couldn’t find the park, I was tempted to drop in and ask at the BMX track if I could have a go because there were heaps of people on mountain bikes riding there, but it was fully dark by this stage and I knew as much as I hated it, I should probably start thinking about winding things up for the day.

I had some very ordinary packet meals that I’d brought along for the trip, but the Landsborough pub was right there, so it seemed stupid in the extreme to sit alone in a cold, dark picnic area eating horrible packet pasta when I could go into a nice warm pub and get a yummy dinner. I had a great time at the pub, chatting to people and hoovering up a really nice Guiness beef pie. It was hard to leave, but I did eventually and spent the night in the van in the carpark of the Glasshouse tourist info centre, with a pedal right in my face. I never imagined I’d sleep with my bike! I love it, but really, is this too much? I don’t know.

The next day I was lucky to get the ride in at Mt Tibrogargan because my car decided it didn’t like the situation. I found a mechanic in Landsborough and he said the starter motor was effed, so I drove all the way back home without stopping (around 3.5 hours) because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to start it again if I stopped, although I had to drive it to the mechanic in Bundaberg the next day, and this is how the unexpected outcomes made their appearance.

On the Soldiers Settler Trail from Mt Tibrogargan to Beerburrum

After I dropped the car at the mechanic I had to ride all the way back home because I had no one to pick me up. This was definitely an unexpected outcome, but a good one because I do like a challenge: 67km, 5.5 hours. It meant that I didn’t make it to Noosa to hang out with my friend. I probably could’ve made it if I really pushed myself, but given how exhausted I was from all the riding, pedal-face-sleeping, hiking, driving and problem-solving I’d done in the last couple of days, it seemd wise to calm the fuck down and just stay at home because who knows when the next unexpected outcome would crop up.

On the way home from Bundaberg to Woodgate

In the spirit of the unexpected, I took off yesterday and discovered a cool place by total accident: Mt Doongul. I had no idea this place existed. I didn’t realise until I’d gotten to the top that I’d gone up the “wrong” road. I had to push the bike almost all the way up the near vertical hill because the road was washed out and impossible to ride on. At the top I saw another road heading in the opposite direction. It was obviously the “right” road becasue it was easy to ride on and it was awesome floating down it at great speed. I managed to get back in the car just as it started to piss down with rain and it hasn’t stopped raining since.

At the top of Mt Doongul with a view to the east

I was really surprised to find a visitors book in a GoPro case at the top. Obviously someone must care about this spot enough to have gone to this effort. There was a fire extinguisher here as well, which seemed to be unused and ready for action. Very forward thinking!

I know this unexpected stuff doesn’t just happen to me, but sometimes it feels like it does! I think it often feels so wild because I’m pretty much always doing adventure on my own, so it’s just me dealing with stuff, by myself, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, and nothing ever goes sideways in isolation. One thing ALWAYS leads to another and that’s how there are unexpected outcomes of basically everything. I like that about life though because that’s what makes it amazing and that’s how you get to discover how resourceful you are. I wrote this mantra a while ago. This isn’t just about me, but about anyone who chooses to embrace the unexpected outcomes of basically everything…

**HOW WILL YOU EMBRACE THE UNEXPECTED OUTCOMES THAT BLOW IN ON THE NEXT BREEZE?**

Bike Hire Antichrist

Posted on July 12, 2025 by freestateofjen

A while ago I decided to take a new direction in my life and not get another job after I finished up my last entomology contract. That approach sounds like fun, right? But, there are a couple of problems: I like money. I like doing something meaningful with my time. I like being around other people working towards an outcome and sharing in achievements. With this in mind I thought I could perhaps start a very small business. I live at the beach and love riding my fat bike on the beach and on the sand tracks. I’m sure other people would love this too, so the idea of starting up a fat bike hire business arose in my mind.

This is Chow. On an extremely hard ride through the sand to Bundaberg. The seven circles of pedalling hell.

I don’t have a massive amount of capital to invest, so I thought I’d probably start with two or three bikes. I reckon I can do this, I thought. I don’t know a great deal about how to do any of this, so like any other reasonable person I thought I’d start my market research to find out whatever I could. I put a post on the local community fakebook page. This is what I asked, “Do people think a fat bike (pushbike, not electric) hire would work here? They’re bikes for riding on the beach and on the sand tracks. The tyres are from 3.8″ to 5.5″ wide. You can still ride them like a normal bike on roads and gravel too. Thoughts?”

Holy shit balls! It went south pretty fast. The first six responses were level-headed responses with people giving honest and useful feedback about whether they thought it would work or not work, but it was all downhill after that. People started attacking each other’s characters, pasts and motivations. I didn’t get involved in any of the arguments because what’s the point? But I guess it was pretty entertaining if nothing else. It was also really amazing to see how total strangers could formulate opinions of me (and of each other) based on me asking about a bike hire business. Why do people even care about this stuff, I wondered outloud as I watched the comments roll in:

First it’s bikes then it’s scooters, then mini bikes dirt bikes [sic], quads and jeeps and full blown 4X4 The same contributor went on to write, Interpreting from your own words that you clearly don’t get enough of a high from just sitting and enjoying the beach you feel the need to add the “high” of riding a bike along it to make it a better experience for you and now you want to market that artificial high for others to also enjoy because you can make the experience “better” than what nature provides. This person seemed to think that somehow I was going to turn Woodgate into another Gold Coast. Man, I’d love to have that power (I probably would use it for something else other than making a second Gold Coast, maybe equality? Hmm?), but I just don’t, I really don’t have that power. I’m just one person who wants to live a meaningful life. Asking too much? Maybe in this town it is. I just don’t know.

See, the thing is, nature doesn’t belong to us, we belong to nature and we all like to experience our connection with the natural world in different ways. I don’t like to go fishing. Does that mean I’m a bad person or that I think people who fish are bad? No. It just means I don’t like to go fishing, so I don’t do it and then I get on with my life. Problem solved, if there even was a problem to begin with, which there wasn’t because I can’t see the point of catrastophising about unrealistic futures that will never eventuate, like theme parks in Woodgate. Although, I did wonder how the group might react if I put up a post asking their thoughts on a waterslide activity park. That was really tempting, but because I’m not an arsehole I didn’t do it.

There is an interesting peer reviewed article here about how tourism operators can create experiences that result in conservation outcomes. I have a Bachelor of Environmental Science majoring in Ecotourism and understand that if more people are given a way to interact with the natural world it improves outcomes for sustainability and conservation because the more people know about something, the more they can care about it.

I’m not a social researcher or anything, but it does seem to me that people who live here are in a constant state of fear. They all seem to hate anything new, any new business, any new building, any new people moving here. I think they don’t like this stuff because they’re worried that if stuff changes that means there will be less for them. It’s like the equality thing where people who are against equality freak out because they think it’s pie: more for other poeple means less for them, but the thing is, there is no pie. Having more equality and more non-destructive ways to experience nature will only ever mean we get to live better lives.

That is if we can get past this sort of shit:

Clearly nature is not enough for you. You have no foresight [sic] or business planning. Old pricks. Sad old people. Go to a nursing home. Get fixed wombat.

Adopting a more constructive way of seeing the world would help here. Getting out of the echo chambers would help because then everyone could embrace a larger life. Imagine a world where you aren’t held back by your beliefs or need to feel like you are the one who is right ALL the time. We live in reality, not inside fakebook and the internet. We only get one life and we should be living it, not worrying about stupid shit online.

I read a book recently called Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. He said in the book somewhere that people have used up over 200 000 human lifetimes by spending time on mindless internet bullshit. Arguing about stupid shit online on inconsequential fakebook community groups is a waste of your life. I just can’t understand why people do it. People really need to read Mark Manson’s book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

As for me, I’m still not sure about the bike hire business and my role as the Bike Hire Antichrist. I’m tossing up a few other ideas as well. I certainly won’t bother putting any more posts on the local community fakebook group, that’s for sure. So, I’ll keep doing my thing (the artificial high stuff) and it’ll look like some of this:

Chow and cows on a rail trail loop near Toowoomba somewhere.

My original fat bike at Woodgate boatramp. This one was called Fatty.

Sign post from when I walked the 30km round trip to the lighthouse at Double Island Point

Me at Cooloola Great Walk trail head. Yeah, as you can see, I’m a real nature hater.

Last bikepacking trip I did. This bike is called The Can’t Bike because everyone told me, *you can’t!*. But I did, so sux to be them. The more people tell me I can’t do something, the more likely it is that I will do it.

From the last ento job I had: Soldier fly pupae.
I’m not doing this job anymore, but I still like flies, which occur in the natural world and are an important part of all ecosystems. This particular species is native to Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inopus

Come Hiking: $27

Posted on March 13, 2021 by freestateofjen

5 days

4 nights

Approx 100km

Cooloola Great Walk

Image: Cooloola Great Walk (from Queensland.com website)

Leaving from Rainbow Beach end

Date TBA, but from 12th April onwards

Cost is $6.75/night/person ($27 on QPWS booking site), plus any associated transfer costs

You won’t need a lot of experience, but you will definitely need to be fit and committed to completing the entire 100km. I’m not carrying anyone out!

Image: I’m not doing this! (Credit for image: click here)

This is a remote hike that requires self sufficiency and you will need to carry all of your own gear in a pack on your back. This will weigh somehwere in the vicinity of 10 – 20kg. You will be responsible for your own water, your own food and its preparation.

I am more than willing to help anyone who needs a hand with stuff, including advice and any recommendations, I just wanted to make it clear than while I am an experienced hiker with eco tourism qualifications, this is NOT a glamping experience and you will be responsible for your own health, safety and any other requirements.

There are a few companies that charge people for this hike. This company lists it as $1095 per person and all you get is your food and the camping permits. That means that the experience and the food is worth a whopping $1068!! Gees, the food would want to be bloody top shelf for that price. Not sure my indian sachets would cut it:

Image: I love these things! They are so freakin’ yummy. You can get them from supermarkets, but the best ones come from Indian shops (Gits Ready Meals). They are all around $2.50 – $4.00 each.

I have a few hiking items I can lend people, but this is a list of basic requirements:

Hiking pack (this needs to have some kind of frame. If you can bend your pack , it has no frame and isn’t any good for hiking long distances).
Tent
Sleeping pad
Sleeping bag
Mess kit (you know, stuff you use to eat. Include a stove here if you want to take one)
Snake bite kit (At least one good compression bandage)
Personal light
Toiletries
Water and water bottles (inlcude water filtration if you want to filter water. I don’t normally bother if it’s tank water)
Food
Clothing
Good shoes/boots

Image: Hiking gear. Trangia stove in foreground. Helinox chair and poles, Wilderness Equipment tent.You don’t need expensive gear like this. I only have it because sponsors gave it to me.

A cheap dome tent (not a pop-up one though) from KMart will work fine, or if you want a cheap entry-level hiking tent, check out Snowys. Wild Earth is another awesome outdoor store in Qld. There’s also heaps of good second hand stuff for sale on Gumtree and ebay.

Some stuff you can share, like water filtration, stoves and tents, so not every person needs their own personal item if you are willing to share these things. Sharing stuff also means you can carry half each to reduce each person’s load.

This kind of thing takes a fair bit of dicking around to organise logistically because you have to work out where to leave your car, how to get to the trailhead from where you did leave it, and then at the end, ummm, how do I get home?? So, what I’m saying here is that if you are interested in coming along, we’d have to sort these details out. I can fit (read: squash) 4 other people in my car.

Image: This is a tidied up version of what dicking around looks like. Of course, this doesn’t capture the ten hours I’ve invested in the whole thing or phone calls and emails I’ve made and sent to ask questions about car storage, transportation, etc, etc. It’s easy to see why a lot of people just pay the thousand bucks for a tour company to do this for them. It would save a lot of hair-pulling.

Contact me on this website or send me and email to let me know if you’re interested:

talulasweetie@gmail.com