Ile Saint Honorat is only 1.5km long and 400 metres wide. Incredibly it has been home to a monastic community since the year 410, when Saint Honoratus settled there. Today 30 Cistercian monks live in the monastery and produce wine from the vineyards of the island. I walked around this peaceful, beautiful place and thought about life as a monk.

A sign read ‘Monks seem to look joyful, what is the secret?’ The answer: ‘When our actions and beliefs are in harmony with our values and community life, we feel deep joy. A simple heart, that does not wallow in sadness, gives us that deep joy.’

I did some stretching and then went for a swim in an attempt to cool off before I started paddling in the hot sun. Through the crystal clear water, I could see a carpet of seagrass gently waving in the current and the silver flashes of fish. Between the two Lerins islands the sea was a mosaic of blues and as always, I tried to appreciate this beauty, knowing it’s only a moment in time.

Across the bay to Nice I paddled, aeroplanes taking off and landing at the airport in an unbroken cycle. This is just one airport, it is scary to think of the sheer volume of air traffic worldwide.

I arrived in the port of Nice and came ashore at a big watersports centre. There were racks of kayaks everywhere so I didn’t see any harm in leaving mine there too. After a shower, I sat on a wall and devoured a whole chicken from a rotisserie with a whole loaf of bread. My body was craving some meat and I don’t think I’ve been getting enough protein, hence the onset of sore muscles and an achy back the last few days.

I looked around the port, gawping at a ridiculously big superyacht, Mimtee. Looking it up, this 79-metre monster is worth $US 100 million and is owned by Najib Mikati, corrupt Prime Minister of Lebanon, who was named in the recent Pandora leaks.

Walking the narrow streets of Nice’s old town felt like stepping onto a Wes Anderson set, the buildings pastel reds and yellow, the shutters green.

Whatever I’m doing, I always ask myself ‘Is there more to life than this?’. I wish I could be content but I can’t help but search for more. More what? Well, more of whatever makes me feel satisfied and content with life. One day I hope I can say ‘no, there is no more to life than this’, and I will be content.

Adventure is centred on experience – creating exciting and memorable stories, seeing the world, meeting people and learning from them, seeing what makes them content. Also the emotions of an adventure – fear, awe, loneliness, elation and more.

As I wandered the streets of Nice, I had doubts. I thought this adventure has no meaning, these experiences no depth. I felt lost and disheartened. I questioned why I’m travelling.

I held on to these thoughts and the emotions that came with them. From such thoughts, profundity comes, though not with ease. I analysed, rationalised and hashed them. I disappeared down a beautiful rabbit warren of thoughts. I phoned a friend and debated them. Soon I lost ownership of these thoughts, and they became concepts. If I don’t process such thoughts, but carry on with life blindly, the thoughts go to storage in the back of my head and I’m left confused and muddled. Instead, I seek clarity. I’ve been working through a backlog of such stored thoughts on my trip.

I wrote down my thoughts, and reading them back clearly saw how wrong I was. My faith in the power of adventure to make me content is restored. When fatigued from paddling, it’s important for me to remember to look for the small things. I had made massive oversimplifications and jumped to negative conclusions.

Back at the watersports centre I sat and chatted to some divers. I was too polite to say no, so ate bread, cheese and salami and drank wine with them, despite feeling absolutely bursting after my chicken. At midnight we said goodbye and I vowed to return and drink a bottle of wine they’d placed on the sea bed to become encrusted in barnacles and shells.

I slept in the changing rooms but had high sugars all night after my chicken feast, so woke feeling like I’d been trampled by a herd of cattle. I need to eat a lot to replenish the energy I’m expending but I’m finding it difficult to cover this with the appropriate dose of insulin.