What I Learned About Letting Go of Control on Munamudanamy

After a super stressful period of work in the corporate world, Tilishia was ready to rewire her brain on the Thorsborne Trail.

We Are Explorers acknowledges that this adventure is located on the traditional Countries of the Bandjin and Girramay peoples, who have occupied and cared for the lands, waters, and their inhabitants for thousands of years. We pay our respects to them as the Traditional Custodians and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

‘Just send through a $200 deposit and I can pick you up from the hotel before jumping on the boat’, John’s voice crackled through an echoey speaker phone.

That was the first and last conversation I had with the man who’d be leaving me at a remote tidal pier at the start of the Thorsborne Trail. This was my pick for a tropical winter ‘holiday’ in Queensland.

It was also my exit strategy.

The trip was booked less than three weeks before I was due on the trail. A trip like this normally creates a block of decision fatigue that’s hard to climb out of, though this time the feeling wasn’t due to the food preparation, transport or even the nightly camp bookings wearing down my capacity. The hike was the mitigation strategy for my own sanity: get me out of my corporate job while I still recognised myself in the mirror.

My well-developed muscle memory kicked in and all I had to do was throw the overnight hiking bag into the car and leave Brisbane.

Hinchinbrook Island, or Munamudanamy, as it’s called by the Bandjin and Girramay peoples, is the collective name that describes the journey interwoven between land, waterways, mangroves, and rainforests.

There were just three passengers on the boat through the canal and we huddled together in the tinny as it sped through the glossy morning waterways. The reflection of the untouched peaks beckoned across the surface like a portal, luring us through.

My mind drifted to the reflection of the sunrise glinting off the cold grey tiled floors of my apartment the morning the news of the incident I had been assigned to landed in headlines. ‘Misuse of confidential information triggers parliamentary inquiry’, or something to that effect, flashed through my brain.

My heart sped up and I was all too aware of its violent pace against the stillness of the dust motes suspended around me that morning. The blanket arcus clouds suffocating the looming peaks of Mount Bowen threatened gusty winds and cyclonic rain, mimicking the impossible chaos as time slowed down for the recalled memory. It was nearly eight months later and between the business of playing clean-up crew, I had forgotten to mourn the place that raised me from an undergraduate to a professional.

And to remember its rebirth wasn’t a reckoning.

Unlike the unusually clear sky in tourist brochures, tropical north Queensland is known for its stormy climate. As a self-confessed Queenslander who writes frequent love letters to the salt and sand, even I found myself foolishly picking my cuticles in the hope that the skies would clear for the walk.

With only a pack on my back and a pair of hiking boots, experienced as I am, I found the anticipation of being swallowed into the shelf clouds nearly as harrowing as returning home.

The reality of hiking through mangroves became apparent when John finally docked at Ramsay Bay, the northern end of the island. Without the wind constantly whipping by the speed boat, the midges and mosquitos settled onto our veins before I had a chance to get out the tropical strength DEET spray from my side pocket. The couple who had shared the boat ride with me were less prepared and started emptying the contents of their bags on the dock.

Less than a minute into the hike I knew the three of us would stick together, at the very least because they confirmed my suspicion that only I had carried a PLB (personal locator beacon) in case an emergency removal from the island was needed. Hyperindependence and preparedness, traits usually seen positively when describing people, I still watched with longing and a bit of envy at being able to rely on others so easily.

Averaging nearly 10 kilometres a day with an 18kg overnight pack usually isn’t for the average holiday maker, though the monotony of step after step sparks a rhythmic cadence recognised by a tired corporate soul. From Ramsay Bay, the three of us set off at an easy pace, taking in the calm waves lapping the untouched beach while approaching Nina Peak in the distance.

My quads had a steep reintroduction into hiking with an 18kg pack, they almost immediately filled with lactic acid as I jumped up and over and down and under the boulders scattered across Black Sand beach.

Light blue and turquoise striped Sally Lightfoot crabs ran in and out of the natural rockpools chasing after each other, unperturbed by the five-foot-something predators walking just centimetres next to them. The critters and crawlers perplexed us by being more curious than afraid of sharing their homes.

In that moment, I found comfort in realising the only control I had here was the fall of my boots and the thoughts in my head.

We stopped for the first night at Nina Bay after around eight kilometres of walking and a short climb up Nina Peak. The climb gave us a full view of both sandy island shores and reinforcing our remoteness. We were the aliens stuck behind tiny screens on this planet populated by sea creatures and crocodiles.

After the short climb back down, the three of us set up camp and had a short nap before our evening entertainment arrived: the quintessential roiling fuchsia and burnt ochre clouds of Queensland. Made uncharacteristically vibrant through the microscopic beads of water and tropical warmth, it was fleeting due to the constant sea breeze. A tourist attraction if only it were stationary for more than a moment.

The first night sleeping in my one-person hiking tent with little more than 70 denier ripstop nylon between me and the anxiety-derived mangrove monsters waiting to tear me apart was not the experience I expected it to be. On the first night news headlines, Instagram, Tiktok, and a host of online shops, were replaced by the sea caressing the sandy shores, the trees greeting each other above where the rivers meet and the starlight kissing the sun as it ducked away.

Going to sleep on Munamudanamy transports you into the intricate equilibrium that is the island. The daily routine of eat, walk, sleep repeat for four days finally convinces Maslow to grant you the divine grace earned from his hierarchy of needs.

Grateful for the exhaustion of my heels, quads, and glutes, I finally noticed the sand between my toes felt more like scratching than itching.