Why you should go hiking

And take your girlfriends with you

the view from the top. exquisite, eh?

We didn’t set out to change our lives. We just wanted to go for a walk.

I heard on a podcast recently how adult women rarely make new core memories together. We see each other, often with kids in tow, often at kids’ activities. The chats blend into one, a skipping stone of surfaces scratched. Conversational immersion pinging like a heart monitor, spiked by small people needing a drink, a wee, a snack, a cuddle, an encouraging word to not run into traffic. Sentences snatched in two by the constant dividing of attention by needs and demands.

It’s hard to have a heart to heart when you’re refereeing toddlers who have the physical ability of Bambi on ice and the diplomacy skills of Putin.

I was pining for new experiences that didn’t centre around food and wine and sitting down. Something inexpensive, that was also purposeful. Something experiential, to be had closeish to home, enjoyed over two days, that would challenge and inspire. New memories aren’t really made with coffees in parks – although they are also excellent and to be enjoyed as often as possible – and they’re also not long lunches – although again, lunches are great. But I wanted it a little cheaper and a little less dressy.

So, I put it out on group message. Who fancies a hike and camping? Lots of weekends didn’t match up, a few had newborn babies or heavily pregnant. But four said yes, with a very varied spectrum of camping and hiking experience, from the never-camped-before, to the veteran of the multi-day hike and carrying equipment type.

This diversity made it so fun, as we egged each other on and soothed the nerves of those new to the idea of sleeping rough. The planning was one of weeks – an oscillation of childcare and equipment. Sleeping bags borrowed, hiking boots unearthed, head torches bought, practise walks had. How much water would we need? Weather apps compulsively checked in the week leading up. How many warm jackets? What dehydrated food will make us least flatulent?

The Warrumbungle National Park is under two hours from our Tamworth home. A 25-minute drive from Coonabarabran, it’s Australia’s first Dark Sky Park, renowned for its sumptuous star gazing and drawing astronomy nutters from around the world. But it’s the unusual topography of the volcanic crags that are so awe-inspiring. Soaring out of farming plains that stretch endlessly to the horizon, the prehistoric escarpments pitch jaggedly to the sky, mountains cleaved into sheer multifaceted planes, like diamonds rendered in rock.

Spring and Autumn, an aussie hiker’s friend

We walked the Breadknife and Grand High Tops loop, which at 14.5 kilometres is easily enjoyed over one day, however we decided to stay at Balor Hut around halfway through the loop and really eke it out. With a kilo of trail mix and roughly a thousand litres of water weighing us down, we set off, arriving breathless after a steep climb at the funny little tin shed that constitutes an Aussie backcountry hit. Verryyyyyy rustic, it was also home to a lot of mice and spiders.

We dumped our stuff and scrambled to the Grand High Tops lookout for sunset. The rocks soaring out of the bush glowed pink in the drifting sun, a spine of some slumbering ancient beast curling through scrub shadowed blue and green. Below us, a couple of eagles soared on thermals, the air warm and clean, buffeting out skin. We could have been the last five people alive. The silence was decadent, a cat sinuous around our legs. Hot, dirty, catching our breath, a sleepless night in a stuffy hut ahead of us, we were very, very happy.

After sitting around a fire and a surprisingly delicious dinner, we snuggled into our sleeping bags on our ludicrously uncomfortable bunks and I can’t remember the last time I belly laughed so hard, listening to my friend’s shriek about mice running across their beds, or begging someone else to bring their croc to dispatch an unhelpfully enormous huntsman. I was crying with laughter, hysterical in a way that conjured memories of pony camp, when the giggles erupt into a lava flow of hilarity, when they finally trail off, only to have someone snort and it all start up again. There were two rock climbers camped outside the hut, and I can only imagine their faces, listening to our hysterics. Mums gone wild, indeed.

Part of the joy of camping is that 90 per cent of your time is busy just doing life. Making a coffee takes all your time and effort. With no phone service, there’s fire gazing, star watching and chatting. Spending an extended time with women you really like is to truly know conversational light and shade. Walking steadily but at no real pace, eyes down on the rough track ahead, questions are thoughtful, answers are complex, minds are changed, opinions are shifted, perspectives are offered, empathy is as warm as the sunlit day. The space, held by soft arms, is gladly shared about. When there’s no hurry, no immediacy to slice the tail off conversation, it drifts and circles and meanders, much like the eagles on their honeyed thermals.

Someone told me that when it feels like time is speeding up and we’re losing control of how fast it’s going, that it is not that we have less of it but that is busier and with less novel experiences, so our time is less memorable. Monotony eschews memory. When we want to slow time down, what we really want is to remember more – which means we need to make our time memorable. Say yes. Get a bit uncomfortable. Become alivened with newness.

can confirm, will sleep in a vermin proof tent next time. we live and we learn!

We got back to town and enjoyed Australia’s best Chinese at Coonababran’s Golden Sea Dragon Chinese and had an amazing pottery lesson and brunch the next day at Pilliga Pottery, a mad and wonderfully eclectic German commune in the Pilliga bush, bursting with art and creativity. And throughout the weekend, whether having a cup of tea in those weirdly small cups at budget motels, everyone sitting on the floor, or around the campfire, or driving, a breath wasn’t drawn. The conversation hummed and flowed, gelatinous and nourishing. Inspirations welled and ideas enthusiastically met. All of us, a little sunburned and more tired than we started, came home refreshed and warmed, excited to see our little families and utterly buoyed about life and its memorability. Confidence in capabilities to do new hard things charged. Gently changed, in the nicest way possible.

Might you be able to do the same?

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Until next time, keep well,

Em xx