Feeding The Sponge

It was late May, 2010 when I was languishing on the couch resting my badly swollen and sprained ankle. Our dreams of competing in an adventure race in Vanuatu in August sorely rested, soggily wrapped in a tea towel with a bag of frozen peas. What to do now? How to escape the tedium of the daily grind?

The idea had surfaced several years previously. A paddling trip from Cairns to PNG, at least that's how it first bubbled to the surface. Not big enough! Dream bigger! All of a sudden, with a steady flow of freshly brewed beans, an odyssey emerged from our brightly muralled lounge room.

Pros and cons considered, deliberations mulled, details discussed and commitments made - our journey began, and a thirst for knowledge and inspiration parched my tv-stained grey matter.

I rapidly exhausted any relevant books from the bookshelf, mostly congested with heavily thumbed adventurous tales, and a seemingly endless catalogue of animals, plants, bushwalking routes and travel guides to long-forgotten destinations. Almost every week since then I have excitedly opened a well travelled parcel containing titles to fuel this fire of knowledge.

Books on kayaking techniques, navigation, and adventures like Paul Caffyn's "The Dreamtime Voyage" - a truly inspiring tale. Stories of adventure, travel and discovery, and of people who have made similarly crazy decisions, to take what they could and head off into some far flung corner of the planet. Desperate shipwrecked survivors' detailed descriptions of the body's response to dehydration and starvation are balanced with recipes for dehydrated meals, and desalinator manuals.

I wonder if this thirst for the written word will dissolve into the horizon next year, or whether I'll try to squeeze just one more book into the crammed crevices of my trusty kayak.