Great Walks ponders the one big question thrown at many a bushwalker. Why?!
Have you ever wondered why you find it so incredibly, wonderfully, soul-warmingly satisfying to walk for hours or days in one direction? Strapping 15+ kg to your back to shred your feet almost as much as your muscles, to groan and grunt your way over nature’s playgrounds oftentimes only to end up back where you started? The answer may lie in your very DNA, in the ancestors who passed their stories, loves and fears down into your blood and code as a human being.
From Indigenous Australians, to American First Nations, to Islamic pilgrims walking to Mecca in the Middle East, to Christian pilgrims walking to Santiago de Compostela or Jerusalem with just their simple robes and a small bag, the want to walk, the need to wander, has always been strong.
Early Christian and Islamic pilgrims both religious and nonreligious used the pilgrimage as a way to strengthen their bond with God and escape the grim reality of life in the Middle Ages, as early as the 7th century. For some it was the pinnacle of their faith, for others it was a convenient excuse to leave their jobs, families and cold northern countries to see the world, walk disease from their bones and take a holiday in a time when such a thing for the working class was completely unheard of.
Have we really changed much?
Religion and community may be a smaller part of our lives now but the yearning for a nice, long walk is still there. The holy place itself is likely to be different for all of us and just as likely to include faith of a different kind; faith of the mountains or a favourite, secret spot, perhaps just the thrill of the unknown itself. Just like our brothers and sisters hundreds and even thousands of years ago, we find some boots, strap our belongings to our back and follow the signs to wherever our heartlands may be.
For the traditional owners of Australia whose nations we often hike through, walking was a part of everyday life. You walked between food sources, to attend ceremonies and visit relatives.
“The walking journey is inherent...the ‘urge to get up and go’ could be described as a particular behaviour we call ‘walkabout’” says Yanhadarrambal (custodian and junior elder of the Wiradyuri, Ngiyampaa and Yorta Nations). “You have very likely travelled some of these routes already- a lot of NSW Highways are carved out along old Indigenous trading routes”.
To the uninitiated, walking long distances in our modern age seems a pretty strange. Have you ever tried to explain why you like bushwalking to someone who just hasn’t got a clue? Questions resounding around the theme of ‘why bother’, ‘there’s bugs out there’ and ‘but that sounds like hard work, you know there’s cars now, right?’ often land thick and fast. How do you explain you love the feeling of your muscles waking up and talking to each other, the smell of air without smog, the touch of rain on your eyebrows; maybe the taste of the wattle pollen on your lips…
Mind and body
Without getting too airy, I love walking because it connects me to my limbs again, my body to my brain. The silence and the sound of my own footsteps give room for the stress of daily life to work itself out- like my ancestors are sorting things out for me just outside of my vision. The smells and the sights weave me into the bush on all sides and I feel a very small part of something bigger – something ancient and silent which was here when my very first family member opened their eyes and will be here long after I am nothing but dust.
If you’re reading this story I’d hazard a bet you know what I’m on about. It’s not just me and you in this time who feel this way. We aren’t special or unique, but connected to a great, rich tradition stretching back millennia. Whoever you are and wherever you come from, scratch the surface of your family history and you will find someone who has gone for a good, long, hard walk for one reason or another.
Perhaps it was an Uncle from long ago who walked their initiation to manhood, or someone like Annie Smith Peck who was the first person to ascend Mt Huascaran in Peru or even French Monk Aymeric Picaud who wrote the Book of St James – a guidebook to the Compostela route written in 1140 (with a daily average of 35km it was not for the faint hearted!)
In his master’s thesis Two Australian Pilgrimages, John Hannaford of ACU notes “Pilgrimages are surfacing once again as significant, visible social phenomena, as they have surfaced in the past in periods of deconstruction, and rapid social change”. Here he speaks of how packing up to walk for a long distance is rather enjoying another vogue. As our lives get more unstable, as we move away from our tribes and the world seems harder and harder to understand, the want to ‘walk it all out’ gets stronger – as it has in times gone by.
Going bush
America’s Pacific Crest Trail has seen a big jump in numbers almost every year for the last 10 years and it’s a similar story in Australia. Statistics from 2015 show more than half of all trips to NSW include a nature-based activity. (Their parks had 5.5 million visitors in that year alone, which is pretty incredible for a state where less than 8 million people live). It’s tricky to get accurate numbers for how many people do a long walk down-under as you rarely need a permit and walking companies don’t often share data. Data from Roy Morgan Research however shows regular participation in hiking in Australia rose over the last five years, from 15.6% to 27.3%.
More companies have started up to meet these needs and more gear companies have followed them. There’s a lot to be gained from more people getting outside and ‘going bush’. From the health benefits, to the kindness and joy shared with other hikers to the enhanced connection and support of our natural places. To take some words from John Muir; "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”.
Whatever form your pilgrimage takes, whether it’s heading to your local trailhead every weekend, booking in two weeks at your favourite national park, flicking through the pages of Great Walks, maybe even walking to strengthen your faith or just saying ‘stuff it’, throwing your pack in the car and hitting up the nearest walk you can find; slip that map in your handy velcro side pocket and know you’re part of a motley crew across your town, your city, your country and the world who are dreaming of or doing the very same thing, and have done for the entire history of human existence.