Sometimes the detour is the route.
It’s only my third day of a twelve-day hike. I have wanted to do this hike for so long and I don’t want to have to admit I am struggling. My pack is far too heavy, the 34-degree heat is baking the rocks of the mountainous range I am walking on and radiating it back into me tenfold. The sharp stones threaten to pierce through my boots. There is a blister on my heel so deep it is almost to the bone. I have been going for more than six hours. Although I have been drinking water, I am down to my last litre.
I am sweating so much that my electrolytes are depleted. I’m cramping, and although I sit down for regular rests as I climb towards my next camp on the map, it does nothing to renew my strength. I must get there. It’s the only place to get more water. Time stands still and I think of nothing other than lifting one leg after the other. Sometimes I crawl up the rocky slopes on all fours. By the last three kilometres I am delirious and the heat exhaustion is serious. When I finally make it to the camp, I know I am done. I’m not going to be able to complete my hike.
But the worst day was not my destination.
I’ve had moments like this in other areas of my life too. Moments where a bad event, an unforeseen obstacle or an outcome so much different to the one I had hoped for, or expected, was the result. It can be heartbreaking. It can feel like failure. Accepting reality on that day of the hike was difficult. Realising it would be unsafe to go on as I was and choosing to get transported back to Alice Springs was humiliating.
It forced me to re-evaluate and to have to make a new set of decisions about where to go from here. But as with other times in my life, sometimes – even though at the time I haven’t been able to see how – these episodes of unexpected defeat can end up turning into something much greater. I hired a car, I went to Uluru and I touristed for the next few days as my body healed.
Then, unexpectedly a rainfall event associated with a tropical system up north swept across the country and soaked everything. If I’d been up in the ranges when the downpour hit, myself and all my gear would be sodden. And when the rain passed, the weather dramatically cooled. Conditions for walking had become perfect.
Sometimes the unexpected can be a blessing. I re-organised my gear, reduced the weight of my pack and arranged food drops for the remainder of the hike. Then I got a lift back out to where I’d left off. I laced up my boots and I completed the 223km Larapinta Trail solo, end to end.
What I learnt from that experience was that things don’t always have to go to plan to be a success. And a single event does not define an outcome. A mistake or a setback in my life, does not mean I will never fully arrive to where I am meant to be. There are detours, alternate routes and new ways of doing things that mean no matter what happens – how far behind I think I might be or how different a picture looks to what I think it ‘should’ be – that it is not the entirety of the view. A setback or a phase of difficulty does not mean the journey is over.
I remind myself of this at times when the bad stuff is weighing heavier than the good. Things have been good before. And they will be good again. Sometimes it’s just a matter of readjusting the load I am carrying, working out a better way, and being willing to set off on the path again. To me, one of the greatest privileges of being alive is that there are endless possibilities available to try new things, to learn, to adapt and to grow in ways I could never have even conceived of at the outset.
As I get older and look back, I realise I wouldn’t have wanted everything to work out perfectly the first time. Without the detour, I wouldn’t have seen Uluru or explored more of central Australia. I was humbled by the vastness of it. Indeed, there would have been so much I would have missed.
I wonder whether there are ways in which you’ve realised something similar in your own life?
I write from lived experience, not as a clinician or expert. What I share is what I’ve noticed and what has helped me, not advice for everyone. [Why I write this way]
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