Photo by: Chen Siyuan
A couple of years ago, I was camping in the Australian Outback. (You might have heard about my encounter with a python. Spoiler alert: I totally won). When I was there, my husband and I ended up doing a lot of hikes.
Fact: I strongly dislike hiking.
Fact: A sign at the beginning of the trail that claims to be a “moderate” hike is totally bluffing.
I can recall one hike where, amidst the poisonous neon blue spiders and the miles of searing hot sand, I was getting particularly tired of the uphill climb. We had been hiking for a few hours now and as the unforgiving sun seared into the backs of our necks, I huffed and puffed my way through the rocky wasteland. Might I add that we were totally and irrevocably lost?
“There’s no end!” I whined. ”We’re just going to be stuck out here forever!”
The husband was equally unimpressed, but ever the optimistic soul that he is, he insisted that we push on. ”The trail has to end sometime,” he said. To which I replied “Yeah, when a crocodile has eaten us.”
Without a hint of irony, my husband said “In this part we’re more likely to die of heat exhaustion, I think.”
After some deliberation and a lot of backtracking, we did eventually find our way out of the sandy wasteland. What we found was a pretty awesome sight:
Ubir, Australia
Every once in a while, when I am knee deep in stories that don’t want to come together, I have to remind myself that all of the best adventures happen when we go a little further, step outside of our comfort zone and work hard to dig deeper. It’s only when we force ourselves to keep going that we are rewarded.
