Alone in LITCHFIELD
A week before my daughter’s tenth birthday, I did two things I’d never done before. I had just recovered after being sick for a week, during which I’d felt grumpy and caged aboard the increasingly cramped sailboat I’d been calling home in Darwin. I was desperate to tackle one last adventure, but the Top End’s cool, mild, dry season—when all far-northern hiking adventures must take place—was drawing to a close; by late July, the heat was already stifling. When I asked even my most reliable hiking pals on my soon-to-occur adventure, they eyeballed me with the suspicion of lunacy and shook their heads.
If I was to head out, I was going to have to do something bucket list worthy, and it was this: I had never hiked solo before, not overnight at least.
Then there was this other thing. I’d never spent a single night away from my child. That might not sound like a big deal, especially when the said child is an adequately independent ten-year-old, but it sure feels different when you’re the one ripping that bandaid off.
“High time,” I declared, so I packed my backpack and put it by the door. When staring at my pack became too much to bear, I woke before dawn, threw it into the dinghy and motored ashore in the darkness, driving south and determined to reach Litchfield before the heat kicked in.
Three hours later at the trailhead, my partner and daughter waved me off, far too casually with hugs and smiles and a confidence in me that I was yet to feel. And as their 4WD rumbled out of earshot, I brushed aside the fears and ‘what-ifs’ chattering noisily on the periphery of my
