Heart of the Nation: Rock Island Bend, Franklin River

HEAR the name Rock Island Bend and you think of Peter Dombrovskis' famous photo of this spot on the Franklin River.

heart

HEAR the name Rock Island Bend and you think of Peter Dombrovskis' famous photo of this spot on the Franklin River - the water eddying around mist-soaked rocks, eerily beautiful, brooding, sombre.

The place was in a different mood, though, when Esther Daniel woke there at dawn and set off in brilliant sunlight, with birdsong ringing through the gorge.

Daniel was among a party of four who made the first descent by stand-up paddleboard. The trip, in February, was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the defeat of the Franklin Dam plan. "Nothing but a brown ditch, leech-ridden, unattractive to the majority of people" is how the premier of the day, Robin Gray, dismissed the river - but to Daniel it's "God's country".

The 48-year-old from Byron Bay certainly chose a novel way to see it. The boards struggled in the rapids but came into their own in the calm sections, where the four would glide along for long minutes, often in silence, drinking in the beauty of their surroundings. There's a palpable spiritual energy to the place, she says.

Daniel is quick to point out that she's "no hippie". In 1999, she co-founded an online travel business which she nurtured for years - "I was working my butt off, putting in 18-hour days" - and it paid off: in 2009, Yahoo!7 bought the firm for a cool $20 million. Her former colleagues went on to conquer new corporate mountains, but Daniel admits, laughing, that she subsequently "lost the plot... or maybe found the plot". Meaning, the money has allowed her to follow her passions, which include education - she works part-time as a languages teacher at Byron Bay High School - and the environment.

The "hard-core sportswoman" is always looking for new challenges. She recently rode a stand-up paddleboard down Nepal's Karnali River, and lists her interests as big wave surfing, mountain biking, paragliding and skateboarding. Skateboarding? "Yeah, I know, and I'm almost 50," she says, explaining that it's how she spends quality time with her teenage son. "We walk up big hills then race down. It's such a bonding thing - but to be honest, it frightens the life out of me."