6 Meeroo St. Kuranda, N. Queensland

Keila and Claudia at Barron Falls
Henri in his studio
Dinner on the Verandah

My friend Keila is an occupational therapist by training and worked with me at MacKay Centre in Montreal for three years. We had a close professional relationship – a mutual admiration society really. When she left MacKay, I went into mourning. We also worked together training professionals to learn Blissymbolics, a graphic communication system used by people who are unable to speak. Whenever we get together we seem to push each other to exceed our limits. She pushed me to assist her in French at Bliss workshops in Quebec and Paris. I worked for weeks to prepare, and these were exasperating and exhilarating experiences. The parent of one of my French Canadian students, helped me to translate the material I was to present, and I basically memorized my parts and used lots of overheads and slides to compensate. Participants seemed to be able to understand me, but I remember standing in front of them wondering seriously if I wasn’t crazy to be doing this. I kept worrying someone would ask me a question and I wouldn’t have any idea what they’d said, but alas this didn’t happen.
Whereas she always challenged me intellectually, I challenged her physically. We’d enjoyed hiking together in the Adirondacks when living in Montreal, and on a trip to France decided to meet up and hike in the French Alps. I remember that my backpack was damaged by the airline, and we’d had to return to Paris to get another necessitating a later start than anticipated. She’d wanted to camp when it started to get dark but I insisted we carry on to reach the hut high in the alps. I remember the moon was shining so we were able to see the white stone path. I felt like I was Gretel only following a path of stones rather than breadcrumbs. She says I kept referring to my Outward Bound experience and insisted that we persevere; I knew we’d make it, she says she wasn’t as confident.
Another time we’d skied to a hut in a Quebec provincial park and on the way out the next day, I’d wanted to take a more challenging trail back. Our husbands carried the packs out on the flat trail, and we took the harder track. About half way along, Keila took a fall and felt her patella go sideways. When we got back to the car, her knee swelled up, and she required a few sessions of physiotherapy.
When she’d suggested taking some long hikes in Australia, I told her those hut to hut hiking days were behind me. I don’t think I could sleep on the ground anymore and the hikes in NZ have shown me that three to four hours of strenuous hiking is my limit now.
We arrived at 6 Meeroo St. in Kuranda after an uneventful flight to Cairns. Keila and Henri live in an open plan home on a street with a few other homes hidden from the street by rainforest vegetation. In summer they leave the doors and windows open, and there are surprisingly few insects given the situation. However we did end up sleeping under mosquito netting. Duncan has extra sensitive hearing and just one mosquito buzzing around his head will drive him mad. I found it difficult to get used to the net the first couple of nights but by the third, I slept well. It was better than having him up swatting and swearing at 3:30 a.m.
Henri is an artist; I love his work and several of his paintings and drawings grace our walls at home. He has a beautiful studio on the top floor of their home filled with his large and small works. He signs representational works as Teval and income from these sold to tourists at the markets and galleries in Kuranda allows him to create his more original works under his own name Henri Hunsinger.
Keila and Henri met in their twenties when both were travelling the world with their backpacks. They love the free and easy atmosphere of Kuranda, and their home is generally filled with visitors from around the globe. Celine, a former classmate of Henri’s from Montreal, was staying when we were there and Jean from South Dakota was WWoofing. Wwoofing allows people to work for their room and board and travel at the same time. Wwoofing stands for Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Our friends aren’t in the catalogue as they don’t have a farm but friends refer Wwoofers to them. Keila and Henri have hosted Wwoofers who helped them build the rental property located next door and currently Jean does cleaning in exchange for room and board.
We enjoyed our first of many meals on their back verandah under the stars. Keila is an excellent cook and prepared incredible all with entree, main course and dessert at a minimum. We enjoyed salmon, lamb, chicken, steak and pasta main courses. She always insisted on doing all the cooking, and we helped with dish duty sometimes. Ironically it took us 20 years to get to Australia to visit them; Keila will be travelling to Canada and Europe. She will be at our house at the end of May for a visit. Again, I’ll have to get my act together.