Winner of the 2021 ‘Best Travel Book’ at the Australian Society of Travel Writers awards. What would move you to ditch your life and take off into the wild for six months? For Melbourne woman Laura Waters, it took the implosion of a toxic relationship and a crippling bout of anxiety.
An extract from Laura’s book Bewildered. Published by Affirmed Press
I walk on my own for the first day in Pirongia Forest, breaking early from lunch to get going, ahead of the others. I’ve noticed my mind is quieter when I walk alone, and I like that. There is a peace in being alone, a silence from words spoken and, without the cogs turning for conversation, thought seems to slow down too.
The trail climbs steadily – mud, dirt and tree roots. I pause to feel the texture of bark on a tree and gaze up at the light playing through the canopy above. This solitude is more than a need for peace. I need to know what it’s like again to walk solo, to navigate, to be responsible for my own progress. I need to be prepared.
There’s a crash in the bushes behind me and I step aside to let Antoine power through at an even faster pace than usual. ‘I’m racing Liam to the summit,’ he explains breathlessly. Before I can respond, the blue of his t-shirt disappears again into the foliage. Five minutes pass before Liam forges up the trail and in a moment he too is gone.
I wonder if Antoine does anything slowly. I find it tiring sometimes just watching him; everything he does is swift. I admire his ability, though it clashes with my own desire to slow down, to reunite all the pieces of my body and mind, to connect with nature.
A large bird surprises me in the centre of the track. We both pause, the pheasant and I barely a metre apart. One dark shiny eye appraises me, the brown-feathered head tilted, and then the bird returns to fossicking, scuffing around in the leaves, searching for food with a faint noise like a little pheasant twitter of contentment. It feels good to be ignored, to be accepted as a creature of the forest.
But as the hours pass I start to doubt my place here. The trail diminishes to a tangle of tree roots. No trace of Antoine or Liam remains, no reassuring sound of voices filtering through the air. I am alone, buried under the dark canopy. Have I missed a turn-off? No, this has to be it – there is only one trail, and I’m following markers.
Uncertainty lingers.
Go on, Laura. You’re the head of this mission. Lead on.
It seems an alien notion. When have I truly led myself? So much of my life has operated like a carriage on tram tracks – in motion yet confined to well-established routes. Like most others in the modern world, I am trained for employment, to be a functioning citizen working under others and trusting they have the bigger picture under control: signs and fences keep me away from danger, and daily decisions are selected from a range of tried and tested options. Being on unfamiliar ground with no clue or backup doesn’t happen often.
And when decisions are required, it’s rare that I’m the one making them. The world I grew up in always had a man at the helm. The office boss, the boyfriend who took control, the father who sat at the head of the table, drove the family car and changed the light bulbs. My mum was very happy with this arrangement. She was happy to be on backup, to be the one handing over cups of coffee and sandwiches while Dad worked on whatever he was doing. She was happy to relinquish all decision-making to him, even if on occasion those decisions ultimately turned out to be wrong. If Dad wasn’t interested in seeing a particular film she wouldn’t see it either.
Leading my own way has never really been on my radar. Until now.
I decide I don’t want to be slogging up the wrong hill with energy and daylight steadily draining. I cave in, pausing to switch the GPS on. A little blue triangle shows my position, hovering above a dashed line leading to Mount Pirongia, and relief and disappointment mingle. Why did I doubt myself?
This trail is a piece of cake compared with what lies ahead. I need to lift my game.
The dense forest finally peters out and the mountain hoists me onto its shoulder for an immense view of its green and sprawling bulk. Elation courses through me – at having finally knocked off the long, dark climb and at sharing it with no one but a pheasant.
I watch a dazzling sunset with Liam and Antoine, all of us cooing over its changing light, then retreat to the warmth of my tent. It takes scrolling through photos to see the subtle changes that have taken place within me over the passing weeks. My nightly review of the day’s highlights has never yielded more than beautiful landscapes but tonight I notice something different in them, in the photos of me. I look back over previous weeks to compare, zooming in to study them better. I look different now somehow. It’s not just the smile, which hasn’t been seen much in the last year. Is it the tan, maybe? No, it is more than that. My skin looks better. I look lighter.
I finally realise that I look like me. Not the ‘me’ I was familiar with but the real me. Someone I had long forgotten existed. A woman unburdened, free from pressures, doing something that makes her happy. When was I last this person? I truly don’t remember.
And what of anxiety? With a jolt I recognise I haven’t seen it much lately. Nervousness, yes, but not that crippling, all-consuming, chest-squeezing awfulness. Have I escaped that too? Barely six weeks ago I was curled up in a ball on the bed, crying at nothing in particular, hardly able to get through the day without feeling as though my heart would explode or that I might faint from not breathing properly. For a year I have tried herbal drugs, therapy and meditation to relieve the ache, and none of them worked, but put me on a trail in the middle of a forest or beach for a month and I appear to be fine. Surely it couldn’t be that straightforward.
And yet here I am. Happy.
I think back, studying my moods over the past weeks. I don’t feel that blind anxiety on the trail. I never have. It’s other things that make the tightness return – cities, noise, busyness – things I will have to face again at some point.
