Week 10
We started the day really early with my friend Sean at Jervis Bay to check out the sunrise. It was glorious! The sand is exceptionally white and the water is as clear as glass. The sun rising turned the water a magnificent golden colour from it’s reflection of the sun, and there were pods of dolphins swimming around making it a pretty spectacular location. We topped it off with Irish coffees to start our day of walking, using my little camp cooker. It was really special! I may have jinxed it though because I was literally thinking to myself “it probably doesn’t get much better than this”.
Later that day I was laying on the beach and noticed that I had a tick firmly attached to my stomach. I thought “oooh… that doesn’t look very good” and Sean didn’t think it looked good either and he logically suggested that I wait until I got home to get some tweezers to get it out. I was thinking what he was saying was logical but all I could hear my inner voice saying to me was “Hmmm Bailey do something” and my natural instinct as an oppositional arsehole was to want to do the opposite. To my detriment, I did the exact opposite and tried to pull it out with my fingernails. That was grotty because I can attest, that it seriously turns your stomach to watch a tick burrow under your skin and not be able to do anything about it.
From there I walked to Collala Bay and actually crossed the Huskisson River on the Huskisson Ferry. The ferry driver and his 14yo daughter came out to meet me on their day off. They had organised a tinny to get me across the river which was wonderful because even though I would have swum it, it would have been absolutely miserable. The day I was walking, there was torrential rain, and high wind, and with them being exceptionally lovely people offering to help me out, I managed to get across the river nice and dry.
Walking along Callala Beach the weather started to close in with really dark storm clouds, sprinkling rain, and biting wind. Jervis Bay's pristine water quality reflects the sky dramatically and so the water quickly became an ominous dark grey, black colour.
I started thinking about where I was at mentally, and what I was doing with my journey, and the song Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley came on. I remember just having this moment of clarity in a kind of f*-#ked up way…. The line that says…. “it’s not a cry that you hear at night, it’s not someone that’s seen the light, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah” and I thought WOW!…. I’ve never felt more cold and broken as a person than I was in my headspace at that time, and on that beach, but there was something so beautiful about that chaos, and about the fact that I kind of figured out, that life’s beauty is in the sufferance and discomfort which was a bit of a mind-blowy moment for me!
By the time I reached Culburra along the beach, I noticed that I couldn’t actually lift my arms above shoulder height and I thought “what the hell is going on?” and then I remembered the tick. Once I got to the Airbnb I had booked (because of bad weather), I tried to get it out with tweezers but that didn’t work. I became struck by this crazy fatigue and I couldn’t lift my arms to wash my hair in the shower. I’m so lucky I did book the accommodation because the next day I could hardly lift my limbs. I felt terribly sick and dizzy and my limbs felt like lead. I got myself to the doctors at Culbaurra and they concluded there wasn’t anything they could do about the tick, and told me I just had to ride out the toxins which should get better.
It took about 48hrs before I was feeling well enough to take up the Shoal Haven Marine Rescue’s offer to take me across the river. They were phenomenal. They were the most gorgeous group of people. Just awesome!!
It is a completely voluntary run service that basically takes care of the Shoal Haven marine area, involving boat rescues and the like. They were incredibly kind and gave me a tour of the surrounds, and they were generous with their help, sharing their knowledge of the local area and community, and showing me the river which was very cool.
At Shoal Haven Heads a family friend’s cousin runs the holiday park, and he donated a gorgeous cabin right on the water. It was just stunning and he was fantastic. I was so appreciative of that support because I was having another bad mental health day. I was really struggling with the concept that I was nearing home and I was battling with a lot of preconceived ideas and expectations I had for myself of where I thought I would be both physically and mentally, but hadn’t eventuated yet. I had to do some reflection and self-evaluation of what was going on, and unfortunately, my negative self-talk really spiraled. On my day off, after I’d walked a bit, I thought “that’s it!” I looked up at a mountain and I don’t know what it is about mountains but I find that their existence is so freeing and challenging as if they represent an act of rebellion. Mountains being a naturally formed structure that humans struggle with (despite humans having gone to space) a lot of humans can’t climb mountains. I enjoy that! So I found this mountain, it’s raining, it’s very steep and for no reason other than it is a day off, I decided that I was going to climb this mountain. I got to the top, which had a beautiful view, and then it started flogging down rain. It was an extremely sheer slope going down and there was no gentle way of going around the mountain. I tackled it and went back down, sad, depressed, and feeling like crap but…I’d climbed a mountain so that is what I took to bed with me that night. I can’t always apply that in life but it is something that has helped me in the past “what’s the point of climbing a damn mountain anyway and it’s not being at the bottom!”
The next day I decided to head into Nowra to meet up with a few locals that had reached out to me. So, I wanted to show face, even though it was a bit inland and walked 18kms into Nowra. That’s when the Quest Hotel, Nowra reached out and donated a night’s accommodation to me. I don’t know where this luck was coming from but there was a real streak of it and in hindsight, it probably was the perfect time for it to come my way because I was really struggling. One of the beautiful women that work at Nowra Quest Hotel, had her own journey with mental ill health. More often than not, we have all had some mental health incident, but she was a real battler. She relayed her story to me and there were a lot of moments when I resonated with her experiences and similar circumstances. She had actually gone to the local chemist and got me a lot of samples and purchased a variety of goodies, like Berocca, hydralyte, bubble bath, etc, and created the most incredible care package. It was just so so special!! After she gave it to me and left for her shift (because she was working that night) I was overwhelmed and fully lost it! She will never know the impact that kindness had on me at that particular time ‘cause I was really struggling. That absolute thoughtfulness, generosity, and compassion was pure gold. It wasn’t just the items that I was moved by, it was the effort that she had gone to for a complete and utter stranger. Organising a free night in her workplace, to then go out of her way and get me all these supplies… I was emotionally fragile and extremely grateful because it was one of those exceptionally special moments for me and I just wanted to put that in my blog in case she ever reads it.
Not the care package I referred to but another thoughtful snack gift and message from the Hotel staff <3