3am. Alarm goes off. This is it. After fifteen years of dreaming, two years of serious preparation, and more early mornings than I can count, I’m finally doing it. I’m heading to the Appalachian Trail. The shuttle picks me up at 4:20am. The airport is quiet, barely anyone around, the Qantas staff haven’t even opened the check-in counter yet. I find a coffee shop — overpriced, airport standard, doesn’t matter — and I sit there with my thoughts and a very average flat white, th

Fifteen years ago, I was hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina when I crossed paths with a group of hikers who had completed the Appalachian Trail the year before. Listening to their stories absolutely fascinated me. There was something about their energy, their sense of accomplishment, and the sheer scale of what they’d done that stuck with me. From that moment on, the AT became something I dreamed about — watching YouTube videos, reading trail journals, imagining