I tried hiking solo for the first time. Terrified my mother. Before my thirties, I didn’t do any hiking, let alone go into the bush on my own. She probably wished I just took up drinking and stayed home, just kidding, I'm allergic to alcohol. Turns out ugly breathing your way up a mountain is surprisingly cathartic. It taught me to trust myself, and what I lacked in fitness, I made up with resilience.

I still love hiking solo and do it often, and over the years I’ve started hiking with other people too. People always tell me how brave I am to hike alone, and I usually reply, ‘I am, but you can be too. You just haven’t given yourself permission to be brave yet.” Like my workmate Kim. We don’t hang out outside of work, but she keeps up with my hiking blogs and photos on social media. Last year, we were having lunch in the staffroom and she told me that hiking to a DoC hut was on her “someday” list. I asked her, “Do you want to turn ‘someday’ into ‘let’s make a plan’?” It took her a week, but she said yes.

We had two months before our hike to the Upper Whirinaki Hut. Kim had A LOT of questions, I felt like I was her personal Google at one stage. For me, getting Kim to the start of the track was already a win, not being helicoptered out was a bonus. We were a group of six and Kim and I walked at a slower pace than the others. An hour from the hut, the track became narrow and slippery. I turned away for a second when suddenly I heard a big splash. Kim had slipped, flown over the bank and into the river. She was wet and a bit shaken, but uninjured.