Every last drop.

The full moon has just risen over Bathurst Bay, our prison for the last day, as we have suffered through an exhausting rest day. Weekends used to mean so much but a rest day on a Monday is a sweet reminder of the lives we left behind to make this adventure happen. Cape Melville is stunning, surrounded by huge granite boulders that are eternally locked, with the wind and waves, in a battle that will inevitably erode vast monoliths into the fine sand between my toes.

To make matters better by significant degrees of magnitude, Cape Melville's granite backdrop stores a supply of our most precious commodity, fresh water. Water collects under boulders, in caves, in wetlands, and it flows in abundance out onto the beach just 50m from our already windswept tent.

I heard recently how proud the mayor of Brisbane was of his constituents for only using an average of 220 litres of water per day. Lain and I are averaging about 5 to 6 litres a day. That is paddling a loaded kayak for hours in tropical heat, rehydrating every meal, and watching every single drop. Perhaps this is Level 10 water restrictions!

To find a campsite so abundant in water has caused me to reflect on just how precious our resources are here, and how this compares to life back home. On your average Monday morning at home I would have used more water, eaten more food and used more power than I have all day today.

The sun shone for much of the day so I was able to recharge some of my power supply. We have two 14W solar panels, each with a regulator and a 12V battery but it takes at least a full day of tropical rays to fully recharge a battery. Like most things I also have a spare small solar panel and another battery just in case it all goes pear shaped. Our house back home has a 1.5kW solar array on the roof, more than 100 times the capacity of my little panels.

Our house is also adorned with a solar hot water heater, 320L of it sitting in a snug tank on the roof, offering us an almost never ending supply of steamy, hot, fresh water. Today our 10L solar shower spent all day in the sun to provide both Lain and I with a long and luxurious luke warm rinse.

Given Lain's unquenchable thirst for tea, our kettle at home is running more often than Cathy Freeman, with a brew almost constantly on the boil. A stroll down the beach to the spring with the billy this morning, and a few logs burning on the sand provided pretty much the same effect.

Normally we'd drive to the shop to get basic food supplies. This morning Lain took over the reins as the master baker in this household (or tenthold) while I wandered the shallows with a spear keeping an eye out for lunch. Lain's loaf was a crusty success while I brought to the table (granite boulder) as many mud crabs as I could carry. Mmm mud crabs.

We may have shaken some of the modern world's conveniences, and our resources may take a little more thought to secure than we are used to, but we are certainly not suffering for our current remote and simple lifestyle.

Before I fire up the sat phone and connect these words back to the world I think I'll have another long, deep guzzle at the water bottle and drink up all the resources I need.