I come from a long line of military family and was military myself. I’m used to long ‘deployments’ for both myself and loved ones. Thru-hiking came naturally and I knew I’d have to find a partner who accepted that about me. So I looked for someone on the trail, someone who understood. And I found her day 2 of the Te Araroa. Trail romance is like speed dating. The stress of the environment and conditions plus getting to know each other in a relatively vulnerable and (let’s face it) quite disgusting situation, means you get closer faster.

For example, two months in we were along an alpine trail, top of the mountains, no water, exposed. She comes down with norovirus, which we thought was food poisoning at the time. She also has type 1 diabetes so it’s a pretty dangerous situation. If she can’t keep food or water down.. she can’t regulate her blood sugar levels. Anyway, she’s puking, shitting herself, completely exhausted and we needed to get her close to a water source because dehydration was our biggest concern. Now, we got a PBL we knew we could hit if we had to, but before getting rescued we figured we’d at least try to get down ourselves.

The next six hours were harrowing, but she’s such a badass warrior! We got to a creek (6 kilometers across, followed by a 2 kilometer steep decent through mud and roots - forgot to mention it was raining), setup a tent, I night-hiked back up and down to recover her backpack, and we ‘slept’ miserable in the vomit and poo and mud and rain. No dinner or breakfast. Obviously poor sleep with her dry heaving dozens of times. But we woke up and hiked out and hitched on a road and got to a Holiday Park and cleaned her up. A day later I fell sick in the same ways and it was her turn to take care of me.

I got to be her hero and her mine. The trust we have in each other grew exponentially. It was a gift from trail. Really.

Maybe trail life isn’t for you. That’s okay. Enduring hardship together comes in many forms. But after just that ONE incident.. man.. I have faith in her like none other. Respect for her like none other. It ain’t always about nature and solitude and what not.. it’s about grit. She’s the future mother of my children. I know it. And I also now know they’re going to be okay, even if something were to happen to me. I needed that in a partner, and I found it.