The PEOPLE of the TRAIL

Before the sun came down on 2019, when a soon-to-be crippling pandemic was still a yet-to-be discovered virus, three friends and I set out for eight days on the Great Ocean Walk. We spent a week hiking through Great Otway National Park along Victoria’s coastline. We talked and joked and laughed until our voices were hoarse. We cooked and drank together, and we barely left each other’s sight.

Each morning, often before we had packed up our tents, a woman in her 30s set out for the day. She said she’d recently completed the 14-day Larapinta Trail by herself, and here she was again, on a multi-day hike, alone.

Some nights when she saw us she asked to join. She told us she sometimes felt lonely, but that occasional loneliness was a cheap price to pay for her love of hiking, and her friends weren’t interested in joining. Plus, the solo adventure meant the chance to meet new people.

My friends were sympathetic. I was intrigued.

I realised that the four of us had spent every minute on the trail as a group, in twos or as a four but never alone. So after lunch on our final day, we set out one-by-one to find a solo experience, if only for an hour.

That hour wasn’t life changing, but it was different. It was slightly unsettling, but also peaceful and freeing, and I yearned to repeat it.

My plan was