Finally, after weeks of being swept along by programs, projects, meetings and endless to-do lists, I found my way back to the green forest.

The other day, Paul and I drove up to one of my favourite places in the land down under – Lamington National Park, on the Binna Burra side. It had been almost 8 months since I was last there. Back then, I spent three days camping and wandering the rainforest alone, a small gift to myself after months of hard work.

This time I suggested that we hike Dave’s Creek Circuit again. Twelve kilometres felt just right for the day we had. We planned to be back at my place by around four in the afternoon to cook Anthony’s birthday dinner, and with an hour and a half of driving each way, there wasn’t much room for lingering. The night before, I made a lemon cheesecake and did a bit of food prep (ohh we’re having Vietnamese Spring rolls!).

Paul and I met in Nerang, left one car behind and then made our way towards the mountains.

—

The forest welcomed us in the way old forests always seem to do, with a familiarity I have never quite been able to put into words. Sunlight slipped through the canopy, birds called to one another somewhere beyond the trees and the air carried that earthy scent of damp leaves, moss and muddy water after rain in midwinter.

It felt good to walk that familiar path again. This time it was wetter, muddier and much colder than I remembered. The cold made my nose run and my skin shiver but somehow that only made me feel more alive, more awake to the forest around me.

While climbing one of the steeper, muddy sections of the trail, I told Paul that I still carry a small fear of slippery ascents. I don’t remember always feeling that way. Perhaps it stayed with me after climbing Mount Beerwah with Lu. Beerwah is no joke. It asks for your full attention from beginning to end and I think once was enough for me =.=

—

As we walked, Paul and I found ourselves talking about fear. Paul said that, for much of his life, he had lived with fear sitting in the background. After his stroke, he realised there was nothing to fear in the way he once had. Fear is there to protect him from danger, he said, but he has also learned to trust the unknown.

I told him about a podcast I had listened to recently on fear – how to tell when fear is protecting you and when it is holding you back by Simon Sinek and Nelly Attar.

For me, fear isn’t something to get rid of. It is a useful response. It carries information. Sometimes it tells us to slow down, to pay attention, to take care. It exists because it wants to keep us safe. But fear doesn’t have to make our decisions for us. We can always choose how we respond to it.

People often assume I’m fearless when they hear that I hike or camp alone as a woman or when I travel to unfamiliar places, climb mountains or start projects without knowing whether they’ll succeed.

The truth is, I have plenty of fears.

I still feel nervous standing on a steep ridge. I still wonder whether I’m capable enough before beginning something new. I still question myself.

The difference is not that I’m fearless. It’s that I’ve learned to walk with fear beside me. To acknowledge it. To thank it for trying to protect me. And then, one small step at a time, to keep going anyway.

I still remember something Betsy once said to me. She told me she admired the way I live, that I seem to do the things I want without fearing failure. I smiled and told her that if I let fear stop me from living the life I long for, that would be my failure.

Perhaps what has changed over the years isn’t that I’ve become braver. It’s that I’ve become less attached to outcomes. I can only do my best. Whether something works out the way I hoped is never entirely within my control. If I try and it doesn’t unfold as I imagined, then I have my answer. I learn something. I choose another path. Learning to loosen my grip on expectations has been one of the greatest lessons of my life. I’m still learning, still failing, still beginning again. But I know this much for certain: this is part of my life’s curriculum.

—

For the first time in all my years of hiking, I tripped over my own shoelaces. Of all things. We laughed as I lay there on the ground, while Paul joked, “No wonder you’re terrified of slipping!” I told him perhaps my shoes had heard me talking about being scared of steep sections earlier. Maybe they thought I didn’t trust them enough. So I promptly apologised to my shoes and reassured them that they were the best hiking companions I could ask for. I hoped they heard it.

As we walked, I found myself paying attention to the little things again – the fungi growing from fallen logs, the birds hidden somewhere above us, the tiny “sundrops” dancing on the ground beneath my feet,… These are the things I miss when life becomes too full. They ask nothing of me except that I notice.

Perhaps that is why, whenever I am among the forest, the old trees and the birdsong, I become a child again. Because they never ask me to be anything other than present.

[Sunday, 05.07.2026]