When I started this whole bushwalking/hiking caper about 20 years ago, I was astounded at how unfit I was.
If you’d asked me to fill out a form that included a question about my fitness, e.g.: unfit/average/fit/marathon fit, I thought I was average, possibly even average-fit. As a desk junkie during the week, I still managed to get out and walk the suburbs regularly, could happily walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (one of my favourite past-times) and would take the stairs at work.
But it wasn’t until I started venturing into the outdoors with people who had serious fitness (especially the ‘rock-scrambling-up-800m-elevation-with-an-overnight-pack-and-still-holding-a-conversation-type-of-fitness’), did I begin to learn what being fit is really all about.
Talk about everything being relative!
During that painful first 12 months, I discovered a range of techniques to blend in with the others and now, over time, I’ve learnt that there are often more actors in the outdoors than at NIDA.
