After months of carrying my possessions on my back, I emerged a new woman

The idea that travel has the power to change us is nothing new, but occasionally the impact is so great that life is never the same again. Which is how I find myself, 10 years after a journey through the wilds of New Zealand, marvelling at the string of unexpected turns that have occurred since.

To be fair, the trip was a big one, a 3000-kilometre hike from the blustery northernmost cape of the North Island to Bluff at the bottom of the South Island that took a solid five months. Five months of carrying my “worldly possessions” on my back, sleeping in a tent, crossing wild mountains, forests and rivers and generally being disregarded by New Zealand’s notoriously volatile weather.

The author taking a break during her five-month hike in New Zealand.

How did I, a woman in her mid-40s with a good (okay, soul-sucking) corporate job, come to embark on such an audacious journey? It was a surprise even to me, to be honest – an idea from a hiking magazine that had stuck to me like a grass burr. But when “there’s got to be more to life than this” has been rolling around your head for decades, action is required. Hiking the Te Araroa Trail seemed the most excellent idea ever.

Making it even more compelling was that I’d also been suffering from anxiety and depression: crying curled up in a ball on the bed, staring blankly at work computers and generally not functioning. And we all know that if something’s not working, we should turn it off and turn it back on again.

To flick the switch on life, that was my plan. Never mind that I lacked key criteria such as courage and finely honed back-country skills. Sure, I’d hiked Tassie’s 65-kilometre Overland Track and a string of shorter trails – I had some idea – but I definitely wanted backup.

A girlfriend agreed to join me, then pulled out on the second day. That’s when the real journey began.

Te Araroa led me along remote beaches for days, then through tangled mossy forests as beautiful as they were exhausting. I traversed a titanium-grey volcanic desert and clung to vast and steep mountain ranges (sometimes literally), fully aware that they could shake me off in an instant. In the South Island, I either clambered over the Southern Alps or meandered in awe alongside them, crossing plains quivering with tussock grass.

My socks grew crunchy with ice after three days sheltering from a snowstorm in a tin hut. I dislocated my shoulder twice.

LAURA WATERS

It took about four weeks for anxiety to lose interest in tormenting me, two months before I was giggling and singing my sentences, delirious with the lightness that comes with the sole and simple task of walking. There’s no greater joy than choosing the sound of wind in the trees over politicians squabbling on the news, of unfettered wilderness over gritty cities, of pure air over exhaust fumes. My identity was stripped. The silence. The space. Oh, the bliss.

That’s not to say it was easy. In fact, it rarely was. Some days I walked 10 hours or more, getting scratched by gorse, tripping on tree roots, sliding on ridiculously steep terrain, getting blown off my feet on exposed mountain ridges. My socks grew crunchy with ice after three days sheltering from a snowstorm in a tin hut. I dislocated my shoulder twice – a semi-regular “party trick” that’s no fun.

In the beginning, fear whispered in my ear with every step. But the funny thing about fear is that the more you face it, the more it fizzles away. It’s like the Wizard of Oz – intimidating and all-powerful until you pull the curtain aside and realise it’s just a little guy with a smoke machine turning a few dials. Oh. Wait a minute, you mean I can do this? And what else can I do? Blinkers off. Shackles released.

I didn’t set out thinking I could hike Te Araroa on my own, but then there were many things I didn’t think I could do. Things like publishing a book (now two), becoming a travel writer (something I’d wanted to do for decades) and taking the stage as a speaker and host of adventure-film festivals (didn’t see that coming, but I’ll take it).

My world is no longer about being confined within the same four walls, five days a week. It’s about living with passion, adventures outdoors and never getting bored. And I owe it all to New Zealand and the lessons its wild places taught me.

Three years after the hike, I caught up with a German woman I’d walked with for a stint. “I almost didn’t recognise you,” she messaged the next day. “You look more like you, if that makes sense.” It made perfect sense because for the first time in my life I felt like me, too.

It’s a petrifying thought though that, had I never taken a punt on a wild idea, I might have passed an entire lifetime simply existing and not finding my path. It makes me wonder how many others are living lives that don’t feel like them? What lost dreams, suppressed passions and potential contributions to the world have faded into the ether? What could we achieve if we simply tried?

“There’s got to be more to life than this” is a thought I haven’t had for 10 years.

Laura Water is the author of Bewildered (Affirm Press).