Listening To The Body In Cocklebiddy

The walking had stopped about 21 kilometres short of Cocklebiddy the night before, so that was where Day 31 began.

Ben and Ols dropped me back at the restart point, and the first job was simple: get those kilometres done, walk into Cocklebiddy properly, have a cuppa, then head back out for the next session like any other day.

That was the plan, anyway.

It was a wintry morning, but early on the day became bigger than the spreadsheet.

At sunrise, a cyclist came towards me on the Eyre Highway.

His name was Thomas. He was German, from just outside Frankfurt, and his story made perfect sense in that particular place. He had lost his job as a printer in 2009 and had been living pretty much on the move since then, carrying his tent, clothes, food and water on the bike. He was thinking about the Canning Stock Route, Canada if the visa came through, and maybe even a dog in a trailer for company.

Meeting someone like Thomas no longer felt strange. We compared notes on our large, improbable things, took a photo, wished each other well and kept moving.

The problem was that the moving was getting heavy.

I had put in nine consecutive days of 45 kilometres or more. We had been away for a month. We were somewhere around a quarter of the way through the crossing. The Eyre Highway days had been big, exposed and repetitive. There was also event-shirt admin pressing on my mind, which might sound like a small thing compared with walking across Australia, but it was real mental load at the time.

That admin had a specific shape. Before we left Perth, I had tried to get Hearts Across Australia shirts created, but it had not quite come together. Now I had received an email from the front-of-shirt sponsor wondering where they were. I was also being asked why there was not more social media content.

Those were probably simple questions from the outside. From inside the campervan, after weeks of long, physically and mentally demanding days, they landed differently. We barely had time to walk, drive, eat, sleep, recover, and start again. We had a massive support network, but we did not have a social media or marketing team we could hand things to. In hindsight, I am glad we did not, because it meant HAA stayed real and organic. But that morning I had read the email, and it hit my mindset hard.

Physically, I was tired. Mentally, I was carrying more than just the distance.

So when I reached the campervan at Cocklebiddy after 20.9 kilometres, I called it.

It wasn’t defeat. My body had been saying enough for a while, and that morning I listened.

I posted online that if anyone spotted that the dot wasn’t moving, not to worry - the tracker had not broken, but after 20 kilometres and nine straight 45 km-plus days, I was taking the rest of the day to recharge the mental and physical batteries before starting again tomorrow.

The timing helped the decision feel even more correct. The beautiful sunny morning did not last. Soon after I stopped, the skies opened and Cocklebiddy turned very wet.

I told Ben and Ols that was it for the day and asked them to book us in for a second night.

When they came back from reception, they had a funny story for me. Apparently the staff member had looked a little stunned and said, “you do realise there’s nothing here, right?”

Fair comment.

But for us, there was exactly what we needed: somewhere to stop, somewhere to eat, somewhere to rest, and no more kilometres until the next morning. The second night at Cocklebiddy was practical, necessary, and actually quite nice.

There were emails to answer, including that shirt email. During the half-day rest I replied, explained the reality of daily life out there, assured people that the shirts were coming, and then gave myself time to reset mentally and rest physically.

Tomorrow would be another day. For once, that was the whole point.

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