The 3am Coolum Shuffle
It started, as all great mistakes do, with an idea that seemed perfectly reasonable at 2:47am. "I'll walk to Mount Coolum," I told no one, because no one was awake to talk me out of it. "Barefoot. In the dark. For wellness." The air was thick and warm, the kind of Sunshine Coast night that smells like frangipani and bad decisions. I padded along the path feeling very spiritual, very primal, very connected to the earth right up until the earth connected back. I was mid-stride, mentally composing the Instagram caption ("3am. Barefoot. Just me and the mountain. No filter needed."), when something cold, wet, and deeply uninvited landed squarely on top of my foot. Time stopped. My brain, working with the limited information available at 3am, ran through its threat assessment in approximately 0.003 seconds and arrived at one conclusion: SNAKE. What followed cannot be described as running. It cannot be described as jumping. What it can be described as is a fu...
