I asked my Uncle Cameron (UC) to take a photo of me on the trailhead of the Great Ocean Walk (GOW), and later I disovered this nugget as I scrolled through the photos I’d taken during the day. See, he’s not really my uncle. He actually belongs to the Cool Guy I’m Married to, but because I don’t have any uncles of my own, I’ve decided he’s now my uncle and his wife is now my aunty. She doesn’t look anything like this though, which is a good thing, because there’s only so much you can put up with. Without UC I wouldn’t have made it to the trail or back from the trail, so even though he’s a complete unit, I’m glad I’ve got him on my team.

I hadn’t done any hiking for a couple of years because I got into mountain biking, plus I was busy and probably a bit lazy, and maybe, just maybe I’d developed a bit of an ‘attitude’ which basically said, what’s the point of even bothering. But after my last work contract finished I decided I wasn’t going to get another job and there was no way I was going to sit around on my arse being sad and lonely, I was going to get right back into being properly awesome by taking on some adventures. I also accepted that there really is no point to pretty much everything, not in a nihilistic way, but just because that’s life isn’t it? The only point to stuff is the point (meaning) we give it, so time to get on with shit because all of us only have one life.

I decided to do the GOW because it would be a dffierent kind of challenge: my first interstate hike. I’ve hiked a lot in Queensland (QLD), but never anywhere else. In Qld I can get ‘rescued’, but in other states, the options for that are fairly limited. Plus, the GOW was only 100km and the distances for each day were very short, averaging 12.5km/day. Piece of piss, I thought. Yeah, good one dickhead! As if. The whole hike was pretty much the entire opposite of a piece of piss. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because almost the whole thing is either vertically up or vertically down or trudging through deep sand on a beach while you dodge the ocean. I remember the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk being difficult because of the terrain, but I’m not sure it was as hard as the GOW.

The GOW starts in Apollo Bay and ends at the Twelve Apostles. It’s 100km and takes 8 days to complete. I carried everything I needed for the seven nights and eight days, but each campsite had water tanks with rain water, so I replenished my water supply every night. Everyone else I met on the trail filtered their water, but I didn’t bother even though the signs said you had to. I drink unfiltered rain water at home because that’s all we’ve got and I’m not dead yet.

I saw two koalas, one at Elliot Ridge and one at Blanket Bay. At Elliot Ridge he/she was in the undergrowth right next to my tent and it climbed up a tree as I watched it. I didn’t get a photo of the Blanket Bay koala. I actually thought it was a dog because it was walking along the middle of a road and I wondered, Who brings a dog to a national park and lets it wander around off lead? I hadn’t seen a koala since I was on a field trip for uni back in 2009, so I was pretty excited about it.

The cool thing about this hike was the shelter shed at each campsite. The Great Walks in QLD don’t have these. At the end of the day the other hikers who all happened to be on the hike at the same time all congregated in the shelter shed to chat and cook their dinner. I’d never experience anything like this before. In fact, I’d never had the chance to make friends with anyone else on any trail I’d ever hiked or ridden. It was great to talk to everyone else about different gear and we all swapped tips and tricks. Clay gave me lots of food and on the last night everyone shared their leftover extras. Of course I didn’t have anything to share because I am eterenally hungry, so I ate every single thing I could get my hands on including the wild blackberries growing along much of the track. I should probably pack more food. It’s just hard to find packable stuff that I can imagine my future self eating. I fucking hate meusli bars, like really hate them and I can never come up with any breakfast alternatives because I don’t drink dairy milk, so can’t put the powdered version in meusli. I’ve tried powdered coconut milk, but ugh, kill me now. This was the first hike I bought freeze dried meals for. I liked them (mostly), but they weren’t enough to fill me up and I can’t come at buying two meals for each night because they’re $25 each. Argh!

I asked the Trail Gods of the GOW to teach me something I needed to know, something profound and fundamental. Lessons will roll in over time, but the first came early: stop being a tightarse. I learnt this because I was hungry all day everyday: I was too tight to buy better snacks and more food for my evening meals. I learnt this because I was uncomfortable and freezing cold everynight: I’ve always been too tight to buy a proper sleeping mat. Everyone else I met had insulated sleeping mats they’d paid several hundred dollars for. Not me, mine cost $30 on Temu. That’s why I was cold. Also, my pillow wouldn’t inflate: I tried to avoid paying the retail price for a new Sea to Summit pillow, so bought a cheap one on Ebay and the valve was broken. Sure, I got a refund when I got back home, but that didn’t help me on the trail for seven nights without a pillow. I was also cold because I didn’t have a proper jacket. Everyone else I met had puffer jackets. I’ve always been too tight to buy one of these because they are so expensive. I also thought they were too bulky, but Marc from NZ said, “no, you just shove it in between all the other stuff in your pack and it’ll fit bcause you’ve always got space in between everything else.”

I think another lesson is about My Tribe. I’ve been looking for these people almost all my life and I could never find them. I think I finally found them: other hikers. Being with the eight other hikers I met on the GOW, even though we only gathered together at the end of each day, gave me sense of camerarderie I haven’t found elsewhwere. I very much felt that I belonged to these people, they to me and all of us to the trail. It was as though we shared a unspoken secret unavailable to everyday people. I said to them, “I feel like I’ve known all of you for my whole life.”

Even though the hike was hard, it was also really good. I got to see some great stuff and I learnt some new shit about myself: I can get blown over by the wind. This happened on the last day and I never thought it was possible. I really can start a conversation with absolutley anyone: at the Twelve Apostles visitor centre some very large and beautifully attired black people lined up to have one of their group take a photo of them. “You guys look amazing! Where are you from?” I asked. “We are from Congo,” The biggest man said. “Oh, Congo! That’s so cool! I had a dog called Congo, you know, after the movie.” “Oh yes, I know it,” he replied smiling and giggling. It was great. I wanted to take my own photo of them, but I thought that might be a bit weird.

It all ended with something Alexia said:

THE TRAIL PROVIDES