Bonnie Hancock

I was in my home state.

We were on the way home.

What was that like?

It was amazing.

You know, it's like Big Brother, basically on this trip with your boat.

There's sort of five or six of you on the boat.

It's the size of a large living room.

We were close enough to shore.

Now we're actually able to come to shore, visit communities, the beautiful Townsville community.

You know, I had sort of 50, 80 people paddling with me that were outriggers.

And just to be able to have conversations through the day, once we got through those really strong trade winds, got a bit further down the coast, it flattened out.

And I had multiple communities of paddlers

paddled next to me.

And I hadn't had that since Western Australia, the beautiful people of Fremantle paddled with me.

And it just made that whole last stretch, that last home stretch, so enjoyable and it reminded me of the importance of social connection.

Oh, it was almost overwhelming, the mixed feelings, because it was just absolute relief.

And I remember even when I first saw the skyline of the Gold Coast...

the day before I turned to my crew and said, is this real?

Is this actually happening?

I've thought about this for eight months and, you know, never quite believed that I was going to do it.