I’ve always been a mountain girl, and I usually prefer hiking solo — just getting lost in the bush and enjoying the quiet. I sometimes describe it to my Christian friends as communing with my Creator in nature, perhaps the closest I’ll ever get to Adam and Eve’s experience. 
But there are places I’m simply not confident going on my own, so I started joining Andy Gallagher’s organised hikes. I won’t mention the name of the group because he seems to change it every time he has a bad hair day. 
Joining a hiking group taught me something I didn’t expect: mateship.
I’m independent and strong-willed, and for a long time I found it difficult to accept help. Part of it was probably pride. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was the weakest link.
If someone offered to carry something, give me a hand over a difficult section, or help me find an easier way through, my instinct was usually, I can do it myself.
Only later did I realise that people weren’t helping because they thought I was weak.
Sometimes helping one person simply means the whole group moves more smoothly. It prevents someone from exhausting all their energy unnecessarily. And when you’re kilometres into the bush, climbing boulders and crossing rivers, conserving energy is not exactly a sign of weakness. 
So I think I’m becoming a better hiker now — not because I’m stronger, but because I’ve learned how to be part of a team.
Last weekend was our combined hiking-group reunion. We caught up with people we had hiked with before and met people from the other groups.
Naturally, because apparently hikers have a strange definition of a reunion, we celebrated with two fairly intense days involving swarms of March flies, Gympie-Gympie, river crossings and swimming, rock climbing, bush bashing and plenty of boulder scrambling.
And then there was the reward: waterfalls.
Lots of them.
At the end of each day we returned to Tully Gorge campsite, where the fire was going, food and drinks appeared, and everyone sat around swapping stories from the trails.
Maybe that is one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about hiking with other people.
You still have your own legs to carry you.
You still have to climb the rock in front of you.
But you don’t necessarily have to do everything alone.
Stories Along the Way 