Three days after the incident in Nadgee, despite being shaken from the experience and sporting a shiner from the creek head knock, the thought of quitting the walk was never considered an option. Instead, determined to tackle my fears head-on, I walked myself back into the exact spot where I was extracted from a few days prior and walked myself back out.

I believe a lot of parallels can be drawn between this experience and that of managing ill mental health episodes. Sometimes in the darkest times, we feel as though we are stuck deep, deep in the woods, with screams that cannot be heard and prayers that will never be answered. Alone, scared, and desperate, we search for anything that will help us to survive. But as a society, we need to get better at pressing our SOS buttons. Even if deep down we know we are strong enough to survive on our own, this doesn’t necessarily mean we have to. We all need help sometimes, even if it means swallowing our own self-pride to access it. It is better to be alive and vulnerable, than proud and dead.

I continued into the secluded lake town of Wonboyn, where I stayed at a gorgeous caravan park with my father Scott. I then progressed on to make my way down to Green Cape Light House and started my Light-to-Light walk. This was a STUNNING grade 3 coastal walk that stretches 30km from Green Cape Light House to Ben Boyd Tower.

The care and maintenance of this track is a credit to the Parks. This walk can be split up over a few days, but I chose to complete it in the one day. It has some of the most spectacular, flora, fauna, and ocean views I have experienced on my walk so far. The clear sapphire waters contrasted the vibrant red cliff faces and rock formations.

Eagles decorated the sky as I watched them dip from the sky for fish in the sea below that could easily be mistaken for somewhere in the Mediterranean. The walk is extremely well signposted and the tracks constantly changed from bushland to headland, along sand stretches and even sections along the tops of sculpted cliff faces. I highly recommend this walk for your next hiking adventure. From here I walked onwards to Eden along a combination of telegraph tracks and back roads including a swim across the Tawomba River. I can confirm that it was absolutely, take your breath away freezing, and I have cracked the code of the use of ice baths for mental health….. the trick is by freezing your brain so it can no longer function, ill, well or otherwise… haha!!

I took a rest day in the gorgeous town of Eden where I met the lovely Richard at a local cafe (he is a retired lighthouse worker in Eden). An ordinary human who told me his extraordinary and inspiring story about how he achieved getting his local lighthouse operational after decades of it being inoperable and it involving 180kgs of mercury!! Not easy to come by, to say the least. He’s left his legacy with the local Eden community and the lighthouse gets turned on once a year! Richard was pretty animated and his own face lit up with mischievous pride when he told me his lighthouse story!

From Eden, I pressed on, to the Pambula river mouth where I got a river crossing from local oyster farmers and legends, Justin, and Dave.

I then continued, on my way through Merimbula and into the local coastal town of Tura Beach where a gorgeous local ‘Vicki’ let me stay at her holiday home in Tura Head, whilst she actually lives elsewhere on a sheep station in the Snowy Mountains! Such incredible generosity from a stranger, for which I am extremely grateful. The 30km Wharf-to-Wharf trail is another exceptional walking trail stretching along exquisite sapphire coastland.

The next day steered me, on my way to Tathra where I met up with my mother, Fiona, who I hadn’t seen since I started the journey in May. Even though we are in touch briefly most days (either by texts or calls) I didn’t realise how much I had missed her and had forgotten how safe her legendary “Ona cuddles” made me feel.

I finished the day by walking from Tathra to between Nelsons and Tanja.

We were based in Tathra for a few nights and it was here that mum provided me with the love and care I have been blessed to have grown up with and what I needed to recharge. Her special touch of motherly love included food, warmth, and some brand-new fleece pyjamas. My first night with mum in Tathra I told her was the most comfortable I have felt so far. Of a day, I would walk, and of a night she would cook me beautiful hearty meals with her special ‘love ingredient’, and we watched movies and read books side by side often in silence and in total comfort, chilling and just enjoying being in each other’s company.

The next destination I reached was the funky coastal town known as Bermagui where radio host Paul West and his wife Alicia had incredibly generously donated their home for me to bunker up in whilst I was passing through Bermagui. It was a place of refuge from the East Coast low that was about to wreak havoc on the East Coast of Australia. I had spoken to Paul on ABC radio a week or so prior, and they were going to be away on a family holiday in Tasmania, so mum and I were beyond grateful to be offered their home to keep warm and dry. Bermagui was the first day my mum hiked with me, and she managed to do an incredible 14kms! It was overcast and rain threatened but we were lucky to dodge the deluge that was dumping on the northeast NSW regions and even though she had to cut back, I was proud of her first effort on my East Coast hike (her mind was willing but her joints less so!!!).

Week 6 & 7

Wandering Minds -

Week 6 & 7

Week 8

Week 4 & 5

Wandering Minds -