WAY OUT WEST

I WAS ALONE. It was 4am, pitch black. I was in a kayak trying to cross an inlet. The water smelt putrid as it slopped against the hull. Ahead of me, nothing. Behind me, nothing. All around me was darkness.

Fear gripped my throat and I gasped for air, feeling the panic rise. I had to gulp it down. Having already run 212km, I had 138km to go and couldn’t afford to lose the plot now. Forward – although I wasn’t sure if I was going forward – was the only option.

So, I paddled. Slowly, the muddy bank materialised, grainy in the dark. I stepped out of the kayak, heaved it out of the water, and trudged uphill into more unknown, into places light and dark.

I was on the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia for the Delirious W.E.S.T. 200 Miler. As I write this, less than a week later, my experience on the track, which lasted four days and three-and-a-half nights, is still a blur. I suspect it always will be. So, I apologise now if this reflection is a little non-linear. But that’s how it was. Because although in a physical sense I followed a linear, eastward trajectory (apart from the times I went the wrong way, adding an extra 11km to my total distance), this wasn’t the case for my inner self. On the inside, I didn’t always travel forwards; at times, I went in circles, backwards or sideways, riding the highs and lows. At other times, my body moved, but inside I