By Nick Newling
After losing her mother to stage four bile duct cancer, Sarah Wheeler climbed on her horse and set off into the bush.
Nine months and 5500 kilometres later, Wheeler arrived at the Rowena Village Inn on Saturday afternoon, ending a life-changing odyssey that raised more than $270,000 for gastrointestinal cancer charity Pancare.
Throughout the journey – which saw her ride four horses, sleep in storerooms and unfamiliar homes, and teach an elderly stranger to drive her manual support car – Wheeler said she found quiet moments to “reflect” on the time she had with her mother.
“My mum was like an angel. I don’t know if you’ve ever met somebody who walks into a room and the room just lights up, or they just have this aura about them. All this energy. She was just one of those people,” the 27-year-old said.
During the ride that took her north to Cloncurry in Queensland and south to Wagga Wagga, Wheeler would turn to a birthday card and voice message her mother left her before her death. Both reminded her that her mum was proud of her, loved her and believed she was destined for great things.
Wheeler felt her parents – including her father, who died in 2010 – were moulding the trek from beyond, charting events so she could help people deal with grief.
“What I learnt about myself, pretty quickly, is that sharing my story helps other people to share theirs, and in return, it helps them to heal as well,” she said. “I also learnt that it’s OK to ask for help.”
The route, “scribbled” on a map laid out on the kitchen table, took Wheeler from her home in NSW’s far north-east through a series of sites important to her family.
One of those stops was Longreach, which she hoped to visit on her mother’s birthday to commemorate her dream of working for Qantas, which began flying out of the town more than 100 years ago.
Sarah Wheeler in western NSW during her six-month journey.Credit: Xanthe McCrea
Along the route, Wheeler founded A Daughter’s Way, a charity dedicated to providing people experiencing grief the opportunity to “get outside, to get on a horse, to go for a kayak, a bike, a hike, and to learn how to channel and navigate their grief”.
The idea came from a trip to Thredbo that her family took just months after their mother’s death.
“It was my little sister’s birthday, and we didn’t want her to just be sitting at home and wallowing in deep sorrow, so we took her back to a place [where she] and my mum had a really good time,” Wheeler said.
“We laughed, we cried, we spoke about our parents, and it was honestly the best thing that we could have done to start our healing journey together as a family. I thought maybe I could do that for other people.”
With the ride now behind her, the self-proclaimed introvert plans to spend time with family, before applying for a Churchill scholarship and writing a children’s book.
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