Knee-deep Lake Cootharaba had never appealed since a camping trip many years ago.    The foreshore is windy and the mosquitos rampant.  However, this was an opportunity to scrutinise the Rolling Solo women’s group in a camping environment.     Lunch with them in a Tweed Heads tavern a previous week was pleasant.   The women are vibrant, go-getters who will not let life’s many challenges hold them back.

Our camping area was like a mini caravan show with all sorts of rigs:    campervans, tents, car camping, caravans and huge mobile homes.   Nowhere did I sense a sense of superiority or condescension related to the type of rig each woman has.

The simplicity of a campervan hit home as I observed some women grappling with not only reversal allocated spots but unhooking rigs to free the car hauler.    One dear soul was heard to say , “My husband always did this.”   You had to admire this seventies something woman who was determined to carry on with her life much the same as when she had her dear partner.  

Yes the group consists of women with varied stories and histories.    A sweet fifties something had only lost her husband last year to bowel cancer and this was her first Solo event.    She sat quietly at the group dinner, gently smiling at the chatter of those around her.  Another, who had nursed her husband for some time before he died, struggled to overcome her shyness and speak to the more lively around her.      Sandra, a country woman leaves her husband behind to join many Solo events as, according to her, “He just wants to sit at home and watch TV”.   There she was, an intelligent and  energetic woman who tows the family caravan around by herself while hubby indeed sits at home.

Rolling Solo and its members are awesome.    The women are full of life, stories and have a “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life” (a favourite quote from The Great Gatsby) in venturing out to see Australia and meet other like-minded women.

On the traveller note, the everglades tour was worth it – such a variety of plants and trees and the black waters hold crystal clear reflections.   The national park is indeed a gift to the nation.

They had gathered on the mountains for the word had passed around that this was to be another challenge-fest on the many longer trails across the Bunyas.   This group of sixties-somethings are friends from long ago when their children, now in their late twenties or early thirties were young, and their own bodies were youthful, needing little maintenance to conquer epic mountain hikes.

Nowadays fitness regimes for the pack included gym thrice a week, bike rides and shorter walks.   For another couple, the regime was bugger-all and another one preferred regular sessions in water-based classes rather than pounding the pavement or testing the knees to their  limits.

Added to the elite group’s older-age fitness regime was breakfast oats with dates and apple and plenty of red wine in the evening, followed by port and bedtime by 9.30 pm. 

“They’re very competitive, you know”, admitted one not so gung-ho who preferred shorter, less rigorous routines.     “Thank God, I’ll have someone to walk with on a two to three k stroll rather than the tortuous ten to fifteen the others are doing”, thought the newest recruit to the group.   

So, while the zealots rolled wraps, packed zip locked bags with nuts and filled water bottles, the recalcitrant three sat by the fireside committing yet again to a leisurely morning stroll among the Bunya pines.

Laird Jeffery stood by his diminutive Filipino wife watching preparation of the camp oven dinner at Goomeri Pumpkin Festival.     The Laird and his Lady both agreed with the two grey travellers standing alongside that the camp oven dinner of lamb curry or sweet and sour pork would not be high on their favoured or flavoured list for dinner.   Preparation was ad hoc for such huge proportions with great handfuls of curry paste being stirred into a massive bony conglomeration of lamb cuts and carrots which denied measured attention.   The huge ladle which stirred the paste into the curry met the cook’s lips on occasions to test for adequate curry fire.     The pork?   Well, it was less deserving of attention and bubbled away in an orange sauce – also with heaps of carrots.    The cook, the local purveyor of meats willingly shared whatever logic underpinned his concoctions and admitted to owning the truck parked alongside the camp ovens which featured the generic labels “Cow, Sheep, Pig” rather than the more familiar “beef, lamb and pork”.

The nomad ladies’ conversation with two bystanders soon switched to their role in the Medieval contingent of the festival parade and their temporary camp home on a nearby mountain whilst visiting from the Phillipines.

A laird, he explained,  is a name for the owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate, roughly equivalent to an esquire in England, yet ranking above the same in Scotland. In the Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranks below a baron and above a gentleman.   Jousting aside, the Goomeri parade was one of the few occasions when Laird Jeffery and Lady Jessica (his diminutive Filipino wife) could assume an identity which brought them accolades from the festival crowds – perhaps more deserving than “another middle aged man with a Filipino bride”.

Requiring little prompting to describe their outfits, the Laird volunteered great detail about his and his Lady’s medieval dress.   We were not, he said, to denigrate his helmet which he confided in us was constructed from  a plastic bike helmet.  We assured this excited Lord and Lady that their efforts would not be unnoticed by us and we would cheer loudly and clearly as they strutted their stuff in the parade the next day.