Taking a stroll across 1000 sand dunes

I decided I wanted to do something big with my life and settled on walking across the Simpson Desert ... it has about 1000 parallel sand dunes that you need to cross.

Jenna Brook near Birdsville. Picture: Jess O'Dea

My family have been in Birdsville since the late 1800s; we’ve got five organic beef properties in the area. I’m one of six kids – my brother Anthony, 42, and I are the only two currently involved in the day-to-day running of the family business, alongside Dad and Mum (David, 71, and Nell Brook, 70). I’m based in the office and involved in everything from accounts to HR and just trying to bring a fresher perspective to the way we do things. I studied animal science at the University of Western Sydney for three years and after graduation travelled through Africa for about five months doing odds and ends. I came home to Birdsville after that trip with the intention of only staying for a month then I just never really left.

Anthony lives on one of our properties with his family; I live with Mum and Dad in Birdsville. Living in a small town is not for everybody but it’s a perfect fit for me because I love this area and I love my own company. I also consider myself really lucky that I get to spend a fair bit of time with Mum and Dad. A lot of people would give anything to get that extra time with their parents, but it doesn’t end up that way for them, so I’m grateful.

Back in 2012 I decided I wanted to do something big with my life and settled on walking across the Simpson Desert, which is a huge desert in south-west Queensland that goes over into the Northern Territory and down into South Australia. It has about 1000 parallel sand dunes that you cross to get across it. I wasn’t a hiker or adventurer but I just love the vast landscape and decided to go on a big adventure and raise awareness for the Royal Flying Doctor Service while I was at it. It took me nine months to prepare and I did it in two weeks with friends following in support vehicles. Then in 2015 I set a goal to take part in an event out here called the Big Red Run, which is a six-day multi-stage ultra-marathon, which I did mostly walking. I walked it again in 2016 but I wanted to challenge myself by learning how to run it so I engaged a coach to teach me. About six weeks into my running career I sent him an email and said “Hey I’ve got this wacky idea: do you think you could coach me to run the length of Australia?” He said yes and that was the beginning of planning my next big event, which I called Running for Bums: it took me 18 months to prepare, then from February to June 2018 I ran 4500km from Tasmania to Cape York, raising awareness for bowel cancer, which runs in our family.

In May this year I was wondering what was next and I happened to be on a scenic flight over Lake Eyre and the Simpson Desert one day. It just struck me what a shame it was that more people weren’t able to come out and experience this area for themselves. All my previous events had been solo endeavours, so I decided to come up with an event to get people out here and out of their comfort zone.

I’ve called it the Simpson Desert Ultra and it will take place on June 6 and 7, 2020. It’s a single-stage event with four different distances: 20km, 42km, 80km and 160km and will start and finish 25km west of Birdsville just on the edge of the Simpson Desert. We’ve already got 138 people from all over Australia registered.

There’s no charity or cause attached to it; I’m just wanting to introduce a new demographic of people to our region. I’m also deliberately not marketing it to “runners” because the word runner can be very off-putting for people. I want people of all abilities to come out and give something a go that they thought they could never do. I’ve been them before and I know how achieving something you once thought was impossible can open up your life in amazing ways. I’ve volunteered at quite a few ultra-marathon events, usually on the microphone as people cross the finish line and I spend most of the time with tears in my eyes because you just see people go from doubting themselves at the start to being totally elated with life by the end. It’s truly magical.