Miranda’s treetop vigil: I've spent 299 days up here

The Olympic legend has finally learned what’s behind her debilitating dizzy spells.

She’s taken the concept of “tree-hugger” to dizzying new heights – and unwittingly found herself in the record books. Miranda Gibson is keen to keep Tasmania’s old-growth forests safe from logging. So much so, by July 30, she will have spent 229 days suspended 60 metres above the ground in a 400-year-old gum tree – smashing the Australian treetop record of 208 days, set by Manfred Stephens in Cairns in 1995.

On her platform in Tasmania’s wild southern forests, she’s endured snow, hail and gale-force winds. But the hardest thing, Miranda says, “is the isolation, the loneliness, and being away from friends and family”. “I’ve got a tarp to keep me covered, but that doesn’t really protect me from the bitter cold. We’ve had quite a bit of snow in recent weeks,” says Miranda, who’s permanently strapped to a harness, for safety, but has just 1.5 metres either side of the tree trunk in which to stretch her cramped legs. While she dreams of hot showers, she proudly boasts that her feet have never touched the ground during the protest.

She has a composting toilet, which she lowers by rope to her support crew on the ground, and bathes using a bucket and a washer. Miranda, who recently celebrated her 31st birthday, says she was thrilled when mum Glenys dropped in from Queensland for a surprise visit and morale boost.

“She came just before my birthday and stayed with me four days,” she beams. “I wasn’t sure how she’d go, because she has never really camped, let alone at the top of a tree. She absolutely loved it. I hadn’t seen her for so long… it was an amazing, connecting experience.”