Bonnie Hancock

We usually use leg ropes as ski paddles, similar to what you use on a surfboard.

The only thing that would hold in these 25, 30 knot winds was what the sailors use, a safety line and carabiner, what Jess Watson in her movie used to clip herself to the side of the boat.

So I'd have to get the ski on the perfect angle, do a chin up type movement to get in.

And this was often in freezing cold, so you're shaking all over and it would take me six, seven times to get in sometimes.

Incredible, amazing, fascinating.

I had learnt by that stage that the best way I was going to get through this paddle, being in so much pain, my body screaming out, having to keep going was...

to actually take in my surroundings.

And it took until the bottom of the country to actually do that.

I was in this tunnel vision focus, typical athlete for the first, you know, stretch all the way to Sydney and past.

By the time I got to Victoria, we were paddling past places where it looked like something off Lord of the Rings, these rolling green hills with no one around for a hundred kilometers or so.

Wilson's Prom at the very bottom of the country for those who've been there.

It's like something off a movie.

And I would say to my crew, remind me to look right.

Remind me to look right and take in the surroundings when we were close enough to shore to do so.

And that was when I physically started feeling better.

That was when mentally I would be more positive.

And there was always a positive to take in, even in the middle of the night.

I'm paddling in the dark.

If I looked up and there were stars up there, I'd think, how special is this?

I'm the only person in the world who has this perspective of the, you know, the sky right now.