On a warm day in May 2004, Liz Byron set off from Cooktown with her two companions, donkeys Grace and Charley, on a self-imposed challenge to walk 2500 kilometers of the Bicentennial National Trail over nine months. This epic journey was a rite of passage to mark leaving 40 years of marriage and embarking on life as a single woman at the age of 61. She foresaw that self-reliance, physical stamina, and route-finding would be challenges but couldn’t have known how the environment in Queensland was to test her to the limit. Years of drought had left much of her route a dusty wasteland, without food or water for her animals. Years of suffering from childhood abuse and a family tragedy had left her unwilling to ask for help. Walking became a meditation, an exercise in being in the moment even when that moment was 43 degrees or she hadn’t eaten for seven hours. In her moving memoir, Liz reveals how she healed herself step by step on the way to her new home in northern NSW—by learning to trust her intuition, the wisdom of her animals and the kindness of strangers. 

"Liz Byron is a singular and brave woman whose nine-month trek with her donkeys was a truly inspirational achievement at the age of 61. Her long walk also took her into the depths of her own heart, a journey every bit as challenging as those 2500 kilometers from one end of Queensland to the other. Hers is a very Australian narrative, the size of the land opening up to the size of her inner exploration. She tells her story with humor, humility and directness, and I can only hope that when I reach that stage of life I have half as much courage." (Malcome Knox, author and journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun Herald, and more)