The Hike Life

I didn’t choose the hike life the hike life chose me.

After I wrote my post on the adventure of the Larapinta Trail, that I’d never written a post on why I like hiking. Here are my top 6:

Connect with Nature

Time away from the phone – even though I do take my phone, I generally have it on flight mode and only use it as a camera. I don’t listen to music when I hike. I like the sound of my feet on the ground. The birds and Echidna poking through the undergrowth, plus I want to be able to hear if someone is running up behind me. Also if there’s is a slithery like rustling anywhere near my feet – I want to hear that shit immediately.

In today’s world I am enjoying time away from emails, Facebook, Instagram, texts etc more and more.

I also find that even when I do the same hike every week or every month I always see (or hear or smell) something different. Like a creek that I could cross last week but now I can’t because it’s rained.

I hike in all weather, when it rains I put on rain gear and go out anyway. When you walk in the rain, the smells are different, the sounds are different, even the colours are different – everything is shiny and clean. Also as a bonus there’s less people around so you usually get the place to yourself. Some of my favourite hikes have been in the rain.

Solitude

Generally I like to hike alone, especially when the trails are well marked and I know the location, terrain and area. Where a hike is more remote or dangerous, I generally go as part of an organised group, or an adventure company. My go-to is Women Want Adventure.

It’s probably not the safest, but there are ways of limiting the risk. Hiking in National Parks that are closer to suburbia (usually where you get mobile phone reception) you generally find even though you can’t see them, you are usually only a couple of hundred metres from houses. I always take a first aid kit with an extra compression bandage, extra water, one of those aluminium foil space blankets and a whistle. I also take a protein bar or something not so much to eat during the hike but something if I get stranded. I’ve never had an emergency but I’d rather have it if needed.

 

Exercise

Turns out bushwalking or hiking is really just putting one foot in front of the other – just off road. There is a certain satisfaction at the end of the hike (endorphins maybe), or when you get to the top of a mountain, or climb up the 991 Furber Steps in the Blue Mountains, when you complete a walk further than you’ve gone before. A real sense of achievement when you get to the top of the mountain.

Mental Health

Whether it’s 2 hours, half a day a full day or a week on a hike gets me out of my head. It somehow stops all the thoughts telling me I’m not good enough, because I’m focussed on just putting one foot in front of the other. Making sure I don’t fall over or roll an ankle. I’m far too busy taking in the scenery to be thinking badly of myself and getting anxious about nothing. I guess that is the definition of mindfulness. Just totally in that moment where foot placement is the most important thing happening.

It’s kind of like hitting the reset button and clearing the head, making it all fresh and happy again.

Explore New Places

Because sometimes just taking a wrong turn, or going down an off shoot on a trial could take you to a view or scenery so amazing that you can hardly believe you are experiencing it. You really do feel as though you could be the only person on the planet that is seeing that view. Well in that moment you totally are!

The Fashion Is Bang On Trend

I will let the pictures do the talking on this one!