MATE. Look at this thing. The VOSTRA V8 285g is the lightest frame in the V8 family and it is built for one glorious purpose: swinging FAST. 285 g unstrung, 10.1 oz, a 645 square centimetre head — that is 100 square inches — on a 68.5 cm, 27 inch frame with a tapered 22-24-22 mm beam. And here is the good bit, the bit I want to buy a round for: the string pattern is 16×18. OPEN.

On a control frame. Which means bite, spin, the ball dropping in like it has somewhere to be.

The build is proper: REVA, more REDCELL material through the layup, the VTEX butt cap, Super Grommets and the V-Sensor Handle, all of which is Volkl's way of saying it will not beat your arm up when you play three days running. Balance is head light at 32.5 cm, so it whips through, and it comes unstrung, which means you get to choose.

And you WILL play three days running.

Volkl reckon this one leads the current generation of players' frames and I am not going to argue with a company on a night out.

Castle Hill. A single lump of pink granite standing 286 metres straight up out of the middle of a city, with the whole town spread out underneath it.

WHICH BRINGS US TO TOWNSVILLE, and I have to sit down for a second because this itinerary is outrageous.

You walk up that at dawn, before it gets hot, and then — THEN — you come down to The Strand, which is a long beach and garden strip with its own rock pool, and you get in the water. Best morning available anywhere on this planet.

After that, Queens Gardens, four hectares laid out in 1870, for lying down in. And then the Museum of Tropical Queensland, which has relics raised off HMS Pandora — the ship sent out to bring back the Bounty mutineers and which then, magnificently, sank on the way home. THE SHIP THAT WENT TO ARREST THE MUTINEERS SANK. I love this town. Same time tomorrow?

"Hill at dawn, rock pool by nine. There is no better order."

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