There is something that happens when you spend a week walking with people.
You get past the usual introductions fairly quickly. There isn't much room for carefully curated versions of yourself when you're tired, sandy, sweaty, hungry and trying to work out how to put your tent away without throwing it into the ocean.
People see you before you've had your morning coffee. They hear the noises you make when you get out of a tent. They see you struggle, laugh, have a good day and get absolutely over the sand.
And somehow, rather than making me feel more self-conscious, I found it strangely freeing.
We talked about difficult dogs. We talked about grief, families and relationships, and the things that don't fit neatly into small talk. We shared stories that probably wouldn't have come up in ordinary circumstances.
There was something about walking alongside someone for hours that seemed to cut through the superficial stuff.
On the drive back after the hike, one of the women and I were talking about this.
“You get to see the human.”
And I realised that this might be one of the reasons I love being away in nature and hiking and camping so much.
It is probably the closest version of the real me that I experience. I think there is something interesting about that, because I'm actually not very good at being seen.
I've written about this before, particularly around gratitude. I can find it surprisingly uncomfortable when someone tells me they are grateful for me, or proud of me, or that something I've done has mattered to them. Being seen in that way can make me want to immediately explain it away.
Oh, it was nothing. You don't need to thank me. You did most of it.
I'm much more comfortable doing something than having someone point out that I've done it.
But Cape to Cape was different.I wasn't trying to be vulnerable. I wasn't consciously deciding to let people see more of me. The context just made some of the usual layers harder to maintain.
There isn't much point trying to look like you've got everything together when you're struggling to get changed inside a tiny tent. And there isn't much hiding the fact that you're in pain when you've got a blistered foot covered in so much Fixomull that we joked at the end I looked like a mummy.
People saw the grimacing. They saw me slow down. They saw me keep going. They saw me tired, frustrated, sore, ridiculous and very happy and I didn't seem to spend much time worrying about what any of that looked like. Maybe because everyone else was doing their own version of it too.
There was something very ordinary about it. No one was particularly polished. We were all tired, a little uncomfortable and figuring things out as we went.
We were just there.
I noticed that happening with the group too. We became close surprisingly quickly. There was laughter in the tents, stories on the track, people checking in on each other, sharing food, tape and practical advice.
Lora made me breakfast each morning because I was taking forever to pack up my gear. It was such a small thing, but I remember it, because when you're doing something hard, those little acts of kindness can matter far more than they might at home.
She didn't need to make my breakfast. She had her own things to think about. But she did.
There were other moments like that throughout the week. Someone checking whether you were okay. Someone sharing something you needed. Someone making you laugh when you were getting a bit too caught up in how uncomfortable you were. Someone telling you a story that made the next few kilometres disappear.
I think I've become increasingly aware this year of how important the right people can be at different points in our lives.
Sometimes someone comes into your life and they are there for years. Sometimes they are there for a particular season. Sometimes you meet someone in March, spend ten minutes across one weekend getting to know them, and then somehow end up seven months later sleeping in tents next to each other and laughing until you're crying.
You don't necessarily know beforehand what a connection is going to become. You just know, afterwards, that it mattered.
And perhaps that's part of what I liked about the group. We didn't need to know what the connection was going to become.
We just had the week.
There was also a lot of ordinary silliness. At one point, someone had joked about my morning groans before I had even properly woken up. My morning groans had apparently become the alarm clock for some people. My reputation had preceded me.
It felt a little like being with people who had known each other for much longer than we actually had.
Maybe that is one of the strange things about shared experiences. You don't necessarily need years of history to feel close to someone. Sometimes you just need enough time together for the small stuff to start showing up.
By the end, I didn't feel like I had simply completed a walk with a group of strangers. I felt like I had spent a week with people who had seen quite a lot of me. And I think that is different from being impressive.
The lighthouse was the obvious ending. We walked the final stretch, touched it together and celebrated. There were certificates. Champagne. Dinner.
But when I think about what I'll remember, it won't only be the distance or the finish line.
It will be the people along the way. The conversations. The ridiculous moments. Lora making breakfast while I was still fumbling around with my gear. Lora's stories that had me laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. The people who saw me struggling and didn't make a big deal of it. The people who shared their stories and trusted me with mine.
The feeling of being part of something for a little while.
But being seen wasn't only something that happened on the track. There were also the people who weren't there at all.
The friends who were checking in from home, following along through messages and stories, and somehow seemed to have fewer doubts about me than I had about myself. They told me I could do it. That I was capable. That they believed in me, even when I was still worrying about blisters, sand, my pack, my feet and approximately seventeen other things.
Amelia was particularly good at this.
On the last day of the hike, she came to pick me up with a goodie box she'd put together while she'd been following along from home. Compeed. Painkillers. Magnesium rub. Shampoo and conditioner. Nice body wash. A block of chocolate.
None of these things were particularly significant on their own, but together they felt like someone had been paying attention.
She hadn't walked the trail with me. She hadn't carried the pack or dealt with the sand or watched me hobble into camp with increasingly creative arrangements of tape on my feet. But she'd been watching.
She knew I'd done something that mattered to me. She knew it had been hard. And she'd been thinking about me while I was out there doing it.
I stayed with her for a couple of days afterwards, and she told anyone who would listen that I'd done Cape to Cape and how proud she was of me. When we went to trivia at the pub, she apparently decided the entire room also needed to know.
Everyone applauded. I wanted to sink into the floor. It was also really lovely.
I think that's what stayed with me about the people who supported me, both on the track and from home. They didn't need to be doing the same thing I was doing to understand that it mattered to me. They paid attention, remembered, and showed up in ways that made me feel cared for, even when I wasn't particularly good at receiving it.
I think we sometimes underestimate how much it can mean when someone takes an interest in something that matters to us. They don't have to share our interests or fully understand our choices. Sometimes it's enough that they want to understand what those things mean to us.
Being seen is a core human need. I think I sometimes forget that when I'm busy convincing myself I don't need the attention. I can still feel uncomfortable when someone tells me they're proud of me, and I may still want to deflect the attention or make light of it. But I'm learning that discomfort and appreciation can coexist.
I'm not sure I'll ever be entirely comfortable being the centre of attention. But I'm touched that Amelia was so proud of me. I'm grateful Lora made me breakfast. And I'm proud that I spent a week with people who saw me as I was, rather than as I thought I needed to be.
Perhaps connection doesn't require us to be particularly impressive, share our deepest feelings, or know someone for very long. Sometimes it grows through ordinary moments of care, when someone remembers what matters to us or takes the time to show up.
Sometimes it's simply someone paying attention, and letting you know that what matters to you matters to them, too.
This reflection shares a personal experience and general observations about human behaviour. It is not intended as psychological advice.
