A couple of years ago I interviewed author Jono Lineen who'd written a very interesting book called Perfect Motion: How walking makes us wiser. After the death of his younger brother in 1988 Lineen spent a couple of years fairly lost, he admitted, but found himself in the Himalayas where he spent the next eight years.
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His time there culminated in a 2700km trek and by the end of it he felt better, stronger physically and mentally, and he was intrigued as to why. He wondered whether it was the geography, the culture, the religion?
"Finally it dawned on me that the answer lay in the simplest part of the equation - walking," he said. "That was the defining activity of all that time in the Himalayas."
He questioned whether there was something about the simple act of walking that had that ability to transcend grief. He began to research the science of walking and discovered fascinating reasons for his metamorphosis.
Once it clicked, it was all pretty simple
"If we hadn't stood up and started walking on two legs, nothing would have happened," he told me.
"I find it really interesting that archaeologists talk about language and opposable thumbs, they talk about all this stuff that is, yes, intrinsic to human evolution but if we hadn't got up and started walking and walking as a group, none of that would have occurred."
There was more to his research, how the neuro electrical flow to our brains changed once we stood up and started walking, how studies revealed our creativity levels increased when we were walking, how there is a deep intrinsic connection between walking and the way we think.
I thought I was being very clever at the time - there's a trait I've let slip over the past few years - by arranging a walking interview with Lineen. We met at the base of O'Connor Ridge on one of my favourite trails, but even in his jeans and leather jacket, Lineen outstrode me; he was tall and lean, a keen cyclist as well, from what I can remember.
A good hour into the walk, and ignoring the pain in my legs, we started talking about the prevalence of movement and journey in narrative. All the phrases: thinking on my feet, one step at a time, one foot after the other, walking away from bad situations ... We came up with a playlist: Walk on the Wild Side, Walk of Life, Walk the Line, Walk Away, You'll Never Walk Alone ... How some of our favourite non-fiction was about walking: Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways: a journey on foot, Cheryl Strayed's Wild, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods ... It may have got a little competitive. Another trait I've let slip.
I should give Lineen a call, for, and sorry it's taken so long for today's meandering journey to get to this point, I've become a walker.
In the past 12 months I've clocked up more than 2.5 million steps, about 1850km (remembering my legs are quite short), and, like Lineen, I feel much better than I did this time last year.
I'm somewhat disappointed that I'm not averaging 10,000 a day, that magical number that apparently isn't as magic as we first thought, but it's something to aim for every day.
Someone had a go at me the other day as I double-tapped the Garmin at the start of our walk. "Hasn't happened if you don't record it," they said. I let it slide because I've spent too many years not holding myself accountable for many things.
I've loved the year discovering my neighbourhood - and I'm sure every path on Mt Majura goes straight up - but I've also spent a year discovering myself.
There have been days when I've shed tears on a walk, sad, angry, disappointed, confused as I start out, the pull of just needing to clear my head in the fresh air leaving me calmer and stronger on the way home.
But other days I've started strong, been game to jump creeks, or ramble up rocks, down into gullies.
I love the days where I have the time to just keep walking. I'm thankful for the extra time that the pandemic has allowed me, able to just get up from my desk here at home and be in the bush in two minutes, able to get a walk in every day because there's no commuting or commitments to get to.
But most of all I love the days when I get lost. Turn left instead of right, take what I think is a trail up that slope, end up having to bush bash for a bit before something looks familiar.
I was lost once but now I know every journey starts with those first steps.