By Amanda De George, editor of the wild Wednesday Flame newsletter 

Thanks to a Southern Right Whale and her brand new calf, I spent most of last Monday staring out to sea. People came and went during the hours I was there, and at one point I felt someone move past me and then stop, just to my left. The woman had a full-size pack on her back, and a spare pair of joggers were swinging side to side behind her. I turned and asked, “So… are you Bailey Seamer?” and somehow, I already knew the answer.

I discovered Bailey while trawling through some community Facebook groups and was intrigued by what she has coined the ‘Wandering Minds Walk'. Back in May, she started what will be a 5000-kilometre trek up the east coast of Australia from Wilson’s Promontory in Victoria right to the tip of the Cape York Peninsula. That’s an impressive hike, done solo for the most part, while raising money for the Black Dog Institute, managing her bipolar disorder and the physical strain such a feat entails. Intrigued, I wrote a little snippet about her a couple of weeks ago.

I was so inspired by Bailey's story that I spent an hour or two pouring over her blog, and felt a strange mix of envy and gratitude that it was Bailey and not myself undertaking this mammoth task. Then suddenly, thanks to my obsession with the Southern Right Whales and her decision to take the grassy path instead of the road, there she was, right next to me, just over a 1000 kilometres into her solo adventure!

But spare a thought for poor Bailey. I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity to ask her all the questions that had been bouncing around in my brain since I heard about her story. As someone who is prone to a little ‘over planning’ I was keen to hear how she approached the walk itself.

“I find if I ever try to plan too hard, life’s like ‘oh that’s cute’,” Bailey said, although she does have a rough idea of where she will be any given day and how long each section of the walk should take. She’s given herself 12 to 18 months to get to Cape York Peninsula, explaining: “I could do it quicker if I really wanted to, but because I tend to not be on roads very often it does take longer, doing a lot of beaches and river crossings.” That, and she spends a lot of time in communities doing education and outreach, stopping and talking to anyone who needs to chat, especially about their own mental health journeys, something which she describes as a “privilege”.

I’m always banging on about how things such as ‘forest bathing’ and ‘nature therapy’ can have a positive effect on our mental wellbeing. However, for Bailey, it’s not so much the being in nature that has helped her, but more the need to problem solve on the fly. “I am constantly trying to focus on, ‘Okay, where are we going? How are we going to get across this river? How are we going to get over this headland?’ And it’s that sort of being really present and problem solving in such an organic environment like the bush, that really gets me out of my head and is really cathartic.”

While we chatted, I noticed that the whales had sunk below the surface and were moving further out to sea. I also noticed Bailey starting to feel the pull of the walk and turning her face north a few times. It was time to go. For both of us. Before she left, Bailey shared a saying from her grandmother: “If something makes you happy, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.” What a perfect end to a perfect synchronistic moment in time.

Follow Bailey’s walk here, donate to the Black Dog Institute here and read about ways to support Bailey’s walk directly here.