Backcountry Adventure, part 2.

The day started slowly. It was raining hard outside, we were "socked in" (the clouds and fog were thick), and we were sore from the day before. There wasn't much motivation to rush out the door.

The couple, Eric and Meg, were friendly and chipper, and we all four quickly fell back into fun and interesting conversation. When we finally decided to roll out, we agreed to hike together, as the weather was pretty terrible and a trek back along the ridge was out of the question, which meant we had only one reasonable route back. Eric and Meg made the polite disclaimer about "being slowpokes" and we could leave them behind if their pace was too slow for us. 

We had no idea the journey would be so challenging and precarious that we would stick together as a team the whole way back, and become fast friends in the process.

 

Fully geared up with rain coats, rain pants (for me at least), and trash bags for our backpacks (they had a spare), we set out into the storm. It was immediately brutal, and instantly soaked us. Cold, windy, and with pelting rain that drove from all directions.

We eventually descended into a valley, where we'd basically work our way down from the mountain tops, following the route carved by millions of years of water flow. Toward the top, the stream was quiet and small.

It was very, very wet, and my clothes were already mostly soaked through despite the rain gear. It turns out water repellent clothing wears out over time, and my jacket certainly did more than nothing but hardly was enough to actually keep me dry. Still, the view was gorgeous, and the people were fun.

Off in the distance, we could make a guess as to where we were heading. It was so wonderful to have a sense of how far we'd be traveling, and to see it in the distance. It's quite different from tromping through a forest, where you have no sense of the ground you can cover in a day, how to conceptualize 8 miles of ground to cover. What's visible in this photo was maybe half the distance of what we actually did.

The terrain was sketchy and required carefully picking our way across slopes of rock slides.

It wasn't long before we had to start crossing the river at regular intervals. This was the next phase of our journey, the water phase. The crossings were pretty manageable at first. As long as you kept moving and didn't try to balance on any particular rock, it was usually fine. 

I was often the one to go first, since it turns out I was the most nimble and daring when it came to hopping across rivers. Might be slightly related to being a dancer. Who knows. Anyway, usually I was there pep talking Eric and Meg, who were the least sure-footed. On a couple of occasions I'd provide a hand to steady them as they made their own way across. It was fun to feel like I was taking a bit of leadership and providing the power of positive momentum to keep us moving forward.

At one point toward the end, we ended up clambering across a fallen tree to pull off the crossing. All the while never falling in the river. (Certainly we could've walked through it, it wasn't particularly deep, but none of us were looking forward to sopping wet feet.)

There was one crossing in particular that stood out to my memory. There was a big rock on the other side, but far away. With most crossings you can get away with something like a hop step. This one though required a full, bodily leap across the stream. Before anyone could talk me into being afraid, I launched myself through the air and landed on all fours on the rock, scrabbling up and away from the water. I then turned around and talked other people up, and would catch them as they leapt across so they didn't have to worry about sticking the landing to avoid tumbling off into the water.

At last, toward the end of the water phase, we came upon a river crossing that was just too difficult. I took a stab at making it across, but the rock I was using slipped right underneath me and I stumbled backwards, topping my boots and nearly losing my balance entirely. The rest of the crew had to just bite the bullet and wade across. My boots and socks had already been pretty soaked from the rain, but now they were sopping and I could feel the squish, squish with every step.

We finally made it to Speargrass Hut, the halfway point, and settled in for lunch and to wring out our socks and clothes. After a couple unsuccessful attempts to build a fire by other people, I set myself to carefully nursing a fire to live in the wood stove while others prepared hot food to share. I take a certain amount of pride in being able to make a fire, and I'm glad I didn't have to eat my pride this time along with my lunch. It warmed the space and provided needed comfort to everyone.

 

After taking some time, we set back out. None of us were pleased about putting all our wet, soggy gear back on. Still, we kept in good cheer, and the conversation always was flowing. Meg and Eric had proven to be really sweet, lovely people, and delightful company. It was a pleasant surprise, because so often when you meet strangers there's a point where you genuinely want to be done with interacting, and we didn't ever tire of one another.

It was time to set back out into the forest. Looking back up the way we had come, it was satisfying to see the thick clouds through which we had hiked, now draping over the mountain like a blanket.

The forest path was usually obvious and marked, but still required careful navigation as the way forward was muddy and riddled with roots and large rocks to trip up feet.

At one point, we reached an area where the path had been completely washed out from the storm. Where there used to be a hill to cut along the circumference, there was now a huge gash, a valley of rocks and scree to crawl down and then scramble back up.

In another area, the land and route had been transformed by the storm. Normally the area we were standing would be flooded with waters, but presumably the wash out from above had changed the course of the river and diverted it in a new direction.

The final portion was challenging, hiking along a steep slope with only tree roots serving as our footholds.

The hike itself would not have been so challenging and intense were it not for the wet and cold. The consensus among Meg and Eric and Shantel, all more experienced backpackers, was that this was one of the most difficult routes they've ever tackled. It just made me appreciate the beauty and rigor of hiking through the backcountry, where you don't have a maintained path to ease your journey.

When we made it back to the parking lot, we were all cheers and joy. We had made it through a demanding trek together as a team, and weathering those tough moments together made us draw even closer together. I hope to get to connect with them back in Portland once they return and to maintain the friendship.

 

Backcountry Adventure, part 1.

It began with a simple day hike at Nelson Lakes, and ended as one of the most intense, beautiful, and precarious backcountry adventures of my life. There's a saying, "If you do something and survive, it's courageous; if you die, it's stupidity." We were fortunate that it was courageous this time around.

The day hike began at 1pm, a wonderful and stunning jaunt around Mt. Roberts, overlooking Nelson Lakes. Shantel and I were in great spirits; the weather was overcast and cloudy, but the hike promised to be beautiful and fulfilling even without visibility.







The terrain changed several times; for much of it we were hiking up the side of the mountain in switchbacks, but eventually the trail cut inward off the hillside and into the forest. At that point, we had climbed into the clouds, creating a haunting effect in the woods.





Cresting onto the summit of Mt. Roberts, a cold, bone-chilling wind buffeted us in all directions. But we were treated to some truly stunning cloud movements as it rolled over the top.

On our way down, we made it to one of the "huts" as they're called in New Zealand. These huts are maintained by the Department of Conservation. They're typically a single room with loads of counter space and a dining table, plus bunk space with thick foam mats for sleeping. The huts are stocked with wood, and visitors are welcomed to build their own fires in the wood furnace to heat the space. 

We took refuge there, as at that moment a hailstorm bore down on us just as we were arriving at the door. We hung out with a family there, who had made plans to go further into the park, to a place called Angulus Hut, but they had heard a storm was rolling in and didn't want their small ones to brave the high winds along the ridge.

Eventually we continued on our way, completing a loop back down the mountain and to our parked van. The weather turned again, forming thunder in the distance, and then, finally, a most stunning daybreak. The sun streamed in and made the whole place feel like it had never rained in the first place.

 

By the time we made it back to the car, it was only 4:30pm. We had finished much earlier than expected, doing the route that was estimated to take 5 hours in just over 3. It was early, and we were in good spirits, and we weren't ready to be done hiking. 

Looking back at the map, we saw that Angulus Hut was estimated to take ~8-10 hours to get there. We figured we could do it ~6 hours, given our hiking tempo and how off the original estimate was. Worst case scenario, we thought, we'd be hiking with our headlamps at night along an obvious track like the one we had followed.

Boy were we wrong on that part.

We hustled to pack our backs with warm clothing just in case, dinner for the evening, and sleeping gear. We made a reservation at the hut, so we didn't bring our tent. (That was the first really big mistake.) We set off again in good spirits; our bodies a little sore, but excited for the adventure and ready to push ourselves.

 

There was another route we could've taken, Speargrass Trail, which would've given us a bailout hut option halfway there at Speargrass Hut in case we decided the trek was too much and we wanted to stop for the evening. We debated for a little while, and then favored the "Ridgeline Route" because it promised to be for "more experienced backpackers" as opposed to the other route which was intended for families. We wanted to push ourselves.

We cruised back up the mountain, making excellent time. After summiting Mt. Roberts in even faster time that previously, we pressed onward to our final destination, Angulus Hut, 9 km away. It was 7pm, and it said it was 4.5 hours away.

I will never forget the experience of watching the sun make its steady descent toward the horizon while at 4000' elevation. Nothing is in your way to obscure the majesty and beauty of this great star lighting up all the land beneath you.

 

We were hiking along the ridge of a mountain range. That stood to reason, as it was called Ridgeline Route, after all. It was cold and windy, but not to the extent that we were concerned about what might happen when the sun set. We knew it would get colder, but both of us had additional layers and we were maintaining a solidly warm core body temperature right now.

The path was still pretty obvious: a worn track through the gravel and small rocks, always marked at intervals with orange metal posts. The posts were often buried into piles of huge rocks, as there was no where else to stake them securely.

 

We saw lots of bizarre life up there, including this strange moss that I've never seen before.



We could pretty clearly see a final ridge that we were going to ascend over. We powered our way up the mountain. When we ascended the ridge, anticipating that the ridgeline part was over, we would just find... more ridge. Always, every time, just. more. ridge.



It was 8pm. The sun was still in the sky, but light was steadily fading, and we were beginning to wonder when we'd begin descending. The faint, growing fear was kept in check by a steady supply of breathtaking views, however.



We powered onward, not yet worried about our circumstances. The wind wasn't terrible, we still had ~1.5 hrs of light, we had warm gear, and the path was well marked. We kept the conversation going, sharing stories and laughter. We were deliberately staying positive.



Then the path became increasingly less obvious. We were scrambling over huge rocks, up and down and back up again. The hiking was intense, and we wanted to keep moving at a steady clip. It was a full body experience with using our arms for balance and moving us up and down the boulder fields.

A reality was finally sinking in: this was not merely hiking a path, we were in the backcountry. A vast expanse of nature, barely maintained except for these regular, impersonal, uninformative route markers. We were picking our way along the ridges of a mountain range, almost as ambiguously as if we had pointed in the distance and made a best guess as to how to get there. The route was growing in challenge, to the point where we're carefully climbing around huge rocky, craggy summits, with a steep slope below us. We weren't navigating cliffs per se, but if we fell we'd have a decidedly unpleasant way down. 

 

It was around this time that Shantel noted that she forgot to bring the first aid kit. (Our second mistake.) It's fine as long as no one gets hurts, but that's a big if, and we both totally deserve to be outdoorsy-shamed for such an obvious omission.

It's fine, I thought to myself. What could possibly go wrong? I was now literally crawling across a mixture of a frosty snow drift and thick, sharp rocks, all of which are loose and sliding out from underneath me. As I stepped through the terrain, I listened to the scree underfoot sliding out and tumbling a long way down. At one point I had to use my hands to grip uncertain, loose boulders to avoid sliding down myself.

 

It's fine. Turning around, I saw Shantel standing there, staring at what she had to do after me, breathless. I could tell she was working hard to quiet the panic in her mind, just like me. We just needed to keep our heads on straight and keep moving forward. There was no turning back, that would only make the situation more dangerous. Go big or maybe don't go home.

Around this time, I stopped taking photos. It was 9pm, the sun was setting, and we had maybe another half hour of light left. We didn't have a lot of time to dilly-dally, so we kept moving fast. I did, however, manage to snap a couple shots of a most spectacular sunset across the mountains while waiting for Shantel to catch up. 

It was majestic and humbling to be this deep into nature. Logically, I knew I wasn't terribly far away -- we had covered maybe 10 miles by that point, but I felt utterly alone, as if I had been trekking for days in the wilderness. There was not a single trace of humanity, save for the route markers. While the feeling was a little terrifying, it was also exhilarating. I was beginning to understand why people undertake such epic journeys into nature.

 

"Hey," I said to Shantel, "Just wanted to note that this spot is pretty sheltered. Not that it would come to it." 

My lizard brain was trying its damndest to make me freak out, but I wouldn't let it. Peering into the fading light, I made reasonable guesses as to where we were heading and noting its compass bearing. We had water and food. I kept track of slightly flatter, more sheltered areas where we could take refuge if needed (again, having a tent would've been clutch in case of emergency). We both had excellent sleeping bags and could most likely withstand an uncomfortable, fearful night on mountain. The storm was nowhere in sight, so we were lucky in that regard.

Panicking wasn't go to serve us, so there was no room for it. Just keep moving, just keep those legs working, and keep careful track of where steps are landing.

My chief concern was losing track of the route markers once darkness descended. Sometimes they were hard to spot even before the sun set, and now I was thinking about how we'd pull it off I couldn't see beyond the beam of a headlamp. The path was occasionally worn well enough that we could make it that way, but there were too many places where there was no guessing which direction to go next for me to rely upon it.

I was working out contingencies in my head when we spotted a sign. A sign! Information! It was encouraging to even know the sign existed before reading it. Shantel wondered aloud, "This sign will either make me really happy to have a good cry. I wonder which kind of sign it is!"

" < -- Angulus Hut     30 min   1 km"

We were nearly there. We both laughed exuberantly and hugged one another. We got this.

I took out my headlamp because the light was about to completely fade from the sky, and replenished its batteries with some spares I had brought. (That was the 1st really great decision I had made, bringing those spares. Always bring spare batteries. Always.) With a fresh, bright beam of light, we had no problem finding each post, and the route was finally descending, rather than continuing along more ridges.

When we saw the hut, nestled next to a stunningly beautiful lake nestled among the mountains, we were filled with such elation and joy. We were going to be just fine. 

 

Once we made it to the hut and dumped our stuff, we met the only other two people in the hut that night. They were both, amusingly, from Portland. Small world. They had just gotten engaged by the lake maybe a couple hours earlier. They were friendly, convivial, and great with conversation. We quickly became acquainted, swapped stories and laughter.

We walked 13 miles that day. Looking through the photos later, we realized we had a pretty good shot of at least some of the distance covered.

 

When we ate, it was a deep, ravenous hunger, and the food felt so very deserved. Our sleeping bags were warm, which was fortunate because wood hadn't been delivered in a couple weeks and the hut was quite cold. The hut warden (DoC volunteers who staff the huts for week-long stints to provide weather updates and emergency services to backpackers) griped about the lack of firewood. She was probably 60 years old and a total badass.

I was so glad to make it through. It was the kind of danger where, in the present moment, it's totally fine, but it felt precarious, like that fortune could change very suddenly. We made some critical errors that made the situation much more precarious. Lessons learned:

1. Bring shelter
2. Bring a first aid kit
3. Check the weather beforehand
4. Check the route conditions (talk to the park rangers) and know what you're getting into

We made it through safe and sound and learned some important lessons. It was the most intense backpacking day of my life, and my first day in the backcountry. It's an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. 

Down Under in the Down Under.

For my final week in Australia, I ventured up to Queensland, famous for the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest (among other natural beauties), its proliferation of dangerous aquatic life (such as the box jellyfish), and its slightly offbeat people (because you have to be slightly crazy to live in a place like Queensland). I spent four days on the Great Barrier Reef learning to SCUBA dive.

My base of operations was Cairns, a small resort town toward the northern end of the GBR. Primarily composed of hotels, hostels, restaurants, and shops, Cairns doesn’t have a nightlife or much liveliness to speak of, but if you have money to burn it can be quite a pleasant experience to participate in the tourist activities. I booked myself a trip on Reef Experience for a four-day, three-night stay out on the GBR. Called a “liveaboard,” you take a transfer vessel out to a boat permanently stationed out in the reef. Most people will tell you that you can get a complete experience of the GBR by snorkeling, but I decided to be a little adventurous and sign up for a certification course in SCUBA diving. I’d never done it before, but if there was ever a place to learn how to dive, it’d be out in one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World. 

The day we set off was woefully rainy and windy, so the trip out to the reef was tumultuous. Even with a motion sickness tablet I get moderately seasick and lost my breakfast partway into the trip. The vague sense of seasickness stuck with me for several hours, lasting through the transfer to the liveaboard vessel and past lunch. Not the most portentous way to begin a four-day commitment to being on the ocean. When they announced the first water session was about to begin, and new guests could go for a snorkel, I exulted that I could at least leave the boat and maybe escape this unpleasant sickness.

It failed to occur to me that as a snorkeler, you’re still floating on the surface of the ocean, still subject to the whims of the ocean’s movement. My body immediately was tossed up and down. Sticking my face into the water, I saw nothing beneath me but endless and intimidating depth, and water kept leaping into my snorkel pipe to be choked upon by me as I inhaled. When I’d lift my head out of the water, I was treated to large choppy waters that would crash into my face and be similarly difficult to establish a calm breathing pattern. I swam feebly and anxious (despite being a pretty strong swimmer), a sense of dread coming over me: was this going to be my experience? What had I gotten myself into? Also, where the hell was the reef? I saw just a few fish swimming around in the depths, but nothing to write home about.

Fortunately I persevered and kept swimming forward, following the procession of other snorkelers, not knowing where I was going. At last, I reached the reef, and suddenly a deep calm overtook me as I beheld the most colorful array of aquatic life in my entire life. It simply defied imagination. I was cast under a spell. Every way I looked, prismatic fish rushed about. Coral of all shapes and types and colors decorated the calcified floor.

This moment marked the turnaround in my entire trip. When I came out of the water, I was hooked. I was in a truly magical, unique place.

The rest was, on the whole, a blissful and wonderful experience. I would do four training dives per day, always with an instructor, and most of the time in a 1:1 setting. I did two night dives as well. To write about my journey, I’ll begin with my delightful dive instructor, Fabian, a thick-jawed, sturdy Aussie originally from Germany.

His combination of a German accent with Australian slang kept throwing me for a loop. He would regularly say common phrases as, “No worries, mate, too easy!” but with the same intonation as the weight lifting brothers from SNL (“we will PUMP *clap* you up!”). Bar none, though, my favorite expression of his would come whenever he began to explain the skills I would practice on the present dive: “We’re going to smash some skills.” It tickled me every time. And smash some skills we did.

Over my first three days on the boat, I completed the SSI Open Water Diver certification, the entry level certification, which allows me to dive autonomously up to 18m. We covered all the basics: equipment maintenance, handling emergencies underwater (how to remove and replace your mask underwater, remove your air regulator, remove your tank, maintain buoyancy, ascend and descend safely, etc.). It was actually quite fun, the process of learning these new skills, many of which I practiced repeatedly. 

Diving is an experience unlike any other. Some people say it’s like flying, except underwater. There’s truth to this comparison, but it misses just exactly how surreal it feels to be underwater for 40 minutes without dying, able to glide about with minimal effort and swim among the fishes. The first couple times, my brain would panic and think I was running out of air, that I couldn’t breathe, because it is so engrained to think of being underwater as being without oxygen. It felt like I was watching my life through a camera lens, as if I weren’t actually there. But I kept reminding myself to breathe slowly and fully, and gradually my respiration slowed down as my experience grew and I became increasingly calm in the water.

Diving is vastly more fun that snorkeling, in my opinion. For one, you never have that jarring experience of water suddenly splashing into your snorkel pipe and on into your mouth or lungs. For another, you can see an entirely different world of marine life. Also, as a snorkeler you don’t get the special privilege of gliding along underwater with a sea turtle.

I went for a couple night dives, which is a different world altogether from the day dives. I was quite thrilled.

It’s thrilling until you look off the back of the boat and see sharks swimming around — they feed in the evenings — and you think to yourself, “Wait, I’m diving into that?” Yes, yes, you are. 

Underwater, you can’t see anything save for the path illuminated by your light. Between the moonlight, your flashlight, and your inner ear, it’s reasonably easy to keep track of up from down, but turn off your flashlight and you’re treated to floating in almost pitch blackness. Amazing.

It turns out that the eyes of a shark glow green when you shine your light upon them. It only adds to the their chilling appearance, seeing this lithe killing machine skulk about in the water with complete ease. Reef sharks are entirely harmless to humans (in fact, all shark attacks are accidents — sharks don’t hunt humans) and are particularly non-aggressive, but I still felt my stomach turn into a knot when when swim at us and slithered right beneath us, probably no more than 10 feet away. 

I completed my Open Water Course in three days, which left me an entire extra day of diving. On a whim, I decided to go through the Advanced training as well, which would entail another five training dives. It worked out that I could squeeze it all into the four-day trip originally planned. Being certified as an Advanced Adventurer allows you to dive down to 30m, giving you access to a lot of popular shipwrecks, as well as expanding your skillset and confidence under the water. 

As an added bonus, it meant I continued to have mostly 1:1 dives with extraordinarily qualified dive instructors. This time I was working with Jon, a smooth American who looked completely at ease under the water. He was astonishingly adept at pointing out aquatic life, so my trips were punctuated by some truly wonderful discoveries. He could spot them long before I ever figured out what he was pointing out. One of my favorites was an octopus, hidden among the coral.

He discovered morays crouching under coral, noted peacock soles (those weird flat fish with eyes only on one side) camouflaged on rocks, and pointed out found rays hidden among the sands.

I encountered a few jellyfish, but the larger kind that are evidently not harmful. Also, apparently turtles love to eat them.

There’s a fish named Frankie at one of the reefs that loves to play with divers. During one of my dives, he followed us around the entire time like a puppy, for the better part of half an hour. 

I even found Nemo. Anemonefish (there are many varieties) are absolutely adorable, the way they peek out from their home, venture out for some food, and then scurry back inside when they’re spooked. Pixar actually really captured their essence in their scenes.

You get to know the passengers and crew rather quickly. There were never more than 30 people on the boat, so even if you don’t get their names you recognize their faces. The roster would change from day to day, as some people would come and go; I felt a bit unusual to be a constant figure for four whole days, as most people stayed over for only one or two nights. Meals were communal, so I was able to forge some friendships over food. I met a lovely couple from Copenhagen traveling the world for the past eight months on vacation, and a friendly technical analyst at Google, and a young pair of college friends taking a holiday in Australia while on break from school, and a few other people. The food was always exceptional: healthful, delicious, upscale, and high-quality. I still don’t know how they could accomplish so much with a small kitchen on the ocean. The crew were surpassingly courteous and friendly, creating a convivial atmosphere on the boat. Aside from the dive instructors, most of them were 20-somethings thrilled to be working on the GBR. 

Social interactions and befriending others mystifies me, and this situation was no exception. My conversations with others never went beyond being friendly, making small talk to pass the time. I felt a kindred spark with the couple from Copenhagen, they seemed quite engaged with the world, but we only had a day to interact. I didn’t connect on a deeper level with anyone else for the entire trip. My experience reminded me of how terribly shy I can be outside the context of dance, which baffles me to this day. The process of getting to know people can feel so forced sometimes, yet when I’m at a dance event I’m all bubbly and it all comes as second-nature. It’s like there are two different people living inside me. Anyway, it was good practice to exercise my socializing skills while in an introverted state. I just never know what to say, each prompt is unnatural and like lobbing some heavy inquisition across a chasm. Once I run out of the sterile conversational starters — “How long are you staying in Australia? Where else have you visited? Where are you from?” — I find myself at an utter loss for what to say. Sometimes I just don’t care to connect, but other times I want to know more about them and don’t know how to start the flow. I feel unsure whether they actually want to connect. I just can’t manufacture the connection. But then, maybe they don’t want it either, and that’s what I’m picking up on. I suppose charisma is partly about being able to form that connection with anybody, but I completely lack it when I don’t have my dancer hat on. Why don’t they do classes on this stuff? 

I found myself not fitting into the usual demographics of the boat: either early 20s and footloose, or middle-aged and settled down. Sure, I don’t have many tethers, but I want them. I have a decent idea of where my life is heading professionally, at least for the next 5 years. So while I no longer identify with the young and wandering crowd, I also don’t yet connect with the settled-in crowd, the married couples without or with children, for I am single and don’t even have a permanent place of residence. I didn't fit in with any group, and I think was perplexing to other passengers, for I defied common patterns, they didn’t know what to make of me. (“You’re a software engineer, okay… Oh, wait, you also teach dance around the world? And you live in a suitcase? Well, that’s… that’s something.”) At least being on the boat reinforced where I want my life to go next. I found myself looking to the settled-in crowd with a touch of envy. I was particularly fond of the Copenhagen couple, for they were very clearly in love with each other and shared a deep and strong bond, but also remained curious about the world and wanted to be outwardly focused as well. That’s precisely the kind of dynamic I hope to have with my future mate.

Unsurprisingly, I did a fair amount of introspection while on board, wrestling with difficult and depressive emotions as articulated in this post. The quiet moments are when these thoughts would intrude into my mental space, the small 30-minute breaks between water sessions and meals or whatever other activity was happening on the boat. The schedule was generally busy, but you would always have these moments, long enough to leave you wondering what to do with your time, but never long enough to let you get into something substantive. Some would take to non-committally reading a book, others sunbathing on the top deck, I often took naps. But when I couldn’t nap, I was left alone with my thoughts, as the other passengers tended to stay to their cabins when not engaged in an activity. 

Lying on my bed alone in the middle of one of the most magnificent natural wonders, feeling sorry for myself and at a loss for what to do next, it struck me then yet another powerful lesson of traveling alone: learning how to be alone with your thoughts. It Because it’ll invariably happen, no matter how hard you try to cram your schedule or visit places of staggering beauty or keep distractions close at hand — there will always be moments when you must be alone with yourself. It made me think of how, as a society, we look to our partner to distract us from those moments, and how that can be an unproductive pattern. We think that finding a long-term partner will save us from loneliness. Sure, living with a partner will mean less time spent alone, but it’s always a losing battle: there will still be times when it happens. If we lean on our partner to shield us from being alone, we become co-dependent, we become less unconditionally loving. A partner can never save us from feeling lonely; we must learn on our own how to be alone and not lonely. It’s something I still struggle with, but I’ve actively worked on it throughout my time here in Oz, and there are at least stretches where I’m successful.

I wondered to myself how I would be acting if I were around another person, what I would be commenting on, and how that diverged from what I was presently doing. What was its significance, the way I can spend so much time in utter silence, breathing and staring at the water and allowing my mind to wander? What does it say about me, the way I am not relentlessly driven to make conversation, even if it’s with myself? These questions still lazily roll in my mind, I turn them over endlessly as I ask myself how I can be a better, more interesting, and more loving partner in the future.

By the end of my stay, I was ready to disembark. I had my fill of routine, of being underwater, in one place, and alone. I was tired of trying to make friends and finding mediocre connections. I was proud of myself for making so much of this adventure to the Great Barrier Reef, of organizing it and having the courage to sign up for SCUBA diving and have this otherworldly experience, but it was time to move on, time for a change of scenery, and time to recuperate. I have no idea where my new diving certification will lead me, whether it’ll remain an occasional hobby activity or turn into something more avid. But, without question I’m grateful for the experience I had out here on the reef, it showed me a whole new world, and allowed me to discover more about myself in the process.