Necessity has driven humankind to strategise, design, create and innovate (some of these humans are featured in the ‘Australian Of The Year’ monument pillars along Lake Burley-Griffin. See featured pic). This need has resulted in contributions, both beneficial, and at times detrimental because we have always strived for ways to fulfil a real or perceived need.

We live in an ableist world that is slowly recognising that people of all abilities have very similar needs when it comes to the desire for other experiences. People with physical, intellectual and emotional disabilities move around the globe, and this has resulted in significant advancements in the acknowledgement of, and adaptations required to facilitate every traveller.

I didn’t always fly, drive and travel with a disability.

Hobart airport tarmac, disembarking, May 2012. My first, most visceral disability travel moment. I pictured my forward plunging body lying, bleeding from every point of bitumen-contact with each step down the horrifyingly vertical, thin, metal, waiting-for-an-accident-to-happen-to-anyone-stair-mountain. Each step down seemed to bring me no closer to the bottom – until it did, of course.

This was, yet another, characteristically abrupt development in my Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD) journey. And so my travelling, including flying with a disability, life began.

Revelatory experiences come in all shapes and sizes and mine came in the form of a five-day stay on one of Australia’s tropical treasures - Hamilton Island. The peaceful, palm-filled hilly mound is a tiny part of the island enclave known as the Whitsundays in North Queensland.

My epiphany was:

‘I am – undeniably – physically disabled.’