Chapter Five

Where Curiosity Leads

Winter slowly gave way to spring, and spring eventually welcomed another Queensland summer. Life seemed to move forward, even though our hearts were still learning how to live without my father.

In the middle-class suburb of Beenleigh where I grew up, you could see the heat rising from the old tarred roads. Children ran through sprinklers to cool down before their mothers called them inside for dinner, while neighbours watered gardens that had turned brown beneath the relentless Queensland sun. 

Mum was working another double shift at the Beenleigh Nursing Home, doing everything she could to provide for my brother and me. Most afternoons I waited for her to come home, and over time, waiting became part of my daily rhythm.

One afternoon in particular has stayed with me for the rest of my life. I wandered outside and sat on the curb of our street.

A Queensland thunderstorm was building in the distance. If you've never experienced one, it's difficult to describe. Long before the first drop of rain falls, the air begins to change. The birds fall silent. The light softens. Even the trees seem to stand perfectly still, as though the whole world is holding its breath.

As I sat there watching the storm gather, my thoughts drifted far beyond the little street where we lived.

For the first time in my life, I found myself wondering what lay beyond it.

Not simply beyond the next suburb.

Beyond Beenleigh.

Beyond Brisbane.

Beyond Australia.

Perhaps, without even realizing it, I was beginning to see the world through my father's eyes.

He had spent my childhood filling our home with stories that stretched far beyond anything I had ever known. Now those stories had become my own dreams.

I remember thinking there had to be more. More than the familiar streets I walked every day. More than the weather-beaten gardens that lined our neighbourhood. More than Vegemite sandwiches for dinner.

Somewhere beyond the horizon, I felt certain there was a world waiting to be discovered.

That afternoon sparked something inside me. It wasn't a dramatic moment.

No lightning bolt.

No great revelation.

Just the quiet beginning of a dream.

The very next day, I decided to walk a little farther than I ever had before.

At first, it was only to the park down the road. Almost every afternoon that summer, I found myself wanting to know what was beyond my neighbourhood park. As the weeks passed, my confidence quietly grew.

Soon, I began walking into the center of Beenleigh. I loved sitting near the train station, watching people arrive and depart, imagining where they were going and what adventures might be waiting for them. Every train that pulled away carried with it another possibility, another story, another place I had yet to discover.

Then one hot November afternoon, everything changed.

As I wandered past the Greyhound bus station, passengers were unloading suitcases while others lined up to board. Over the bustle of the station, I heard the driver call out,

"Last stop... the Gold Coast."

The words stopped me in my tracks.

The Gold Coast.

How beautiful it sounded.

I reached into my pocket and counted the money I had. It was just enough. Before fear had the chance to catch up with curiosity, I bought a ticket.

An hour later, I stepped off the bus in Surfers Paradise.

Before me stretched the endless Pacific Ocean. Waves rolled gently onto the shore. Sailboats drifted across the water toward the horizon, and the coastline seemed to disappear forever into the distance.

I had never seen anything so beautiful.

I sat on the beach for hours, watching those sailboats disappear over the horizon, wondering where they had come from and where they were going. For the first time in my life, I didn't just dream about seeing the world.

I knew I would.

Standing there, I realised the world was far bigger than I had ever imagined.

Looking back now, I smile at that thirteen-year-old girl standing barefoot on the beach because she had absolutely no idea what lay ahead.

She couldn't have imagined travelling to countries she had never heard of, producing and hosting television programs, meeting extraordinary people from every corner of the globe, or one day boarding an airplane that would carry her across the Pacific Ocean to begin an entirely new life in America.

All she knew was this.

The horizon no longer felt like an ending. It felt like an invitation.

Looking back now, I realise I wasn't chasing places.

I was following a path that had quietly begun years earlier.

My mother had taught me to care deeply for people.

My father had taught me to wonder what lay beyond the horizon.

One gave me compassion.

The other gave me curiosity.

Together, they gave me the courage to step beyond the familiar and embrace a life I could never have imagined.

Looking back now, I can trace every extraordinary chapter of my life back to one ordinary afternoon. A little girl sitting quietly on the curb of her street, watching a Queensland storm roll across the sky and wondering what waited beyond the horizon. 

Curiosity changed everything.