Choosing Adventure

21 Feb

How I went from hungrily chasing adventure, then waiting for adventure, to choosing to welcome adventure into my life.

I am sitting on a hilltop, watching five foxed frolic in the snow. The sky has been grey for two weeks, and I’m not sure if the sun has risen yet. I feel the cold of the early morning. The snowy playground is a few inches thick, and grass spikes out where my boots tread.

I have five foxes set in my sights. They’re roaming the hills behind my village, searching for food.

I sit on my foam mat, trying to be as quiet as possible as I pour coffee from my flask. The steam from the hot, milky beverage wafts into the steely air. My fingers are cold from fiddling with the flask, and I appreciate the warm cup.

Chasing adventure

I spent most of my childhood dreaming about adventure. I read books about adventure; I looked for it in the hills and fantasised about grand excitement.

My blood boiled with it.

I spent afternoons rambling the hills on foot alongside my siblings and my dog or on horseback. We would pretend we were explorers discovering new features in our landscape, or sometimes bad guys were chasing us, and we had to escape. Often we discovered random bits in the hills that people had discarded. We would find odd artefacts, like a left shoe, a photo album of people we didn’t know, or a briefcase, and we would make up wild origin stories and try to track down the owner.

It would be fitting to say I chased it, actively seeking out strange places. I crawled through spaces in abandoned cottages or climbed trees to spot it.

Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five books conjured my idea of adventure. Mysteries hooked me. I spent much time wishing something out of the ordinary would happen or something would go wrong.

I realise now, looking back, how strange that is.

Woman smiling in the mountains. — At home in the very hills that inspired by childhood adventures.

Waiting for adventure

For most of my early adult life, I waited for adventure until I forgot about it altogether.

I would stare at the mountains from our townhouse and memorise every contour. I knew how the light danced on the slopes and how the colours would change. It felt like I was watching them on a TV screen.

Then it vanished from my mind. I was devoted to my studies, my hobbies and my friends. Even though I still liked to watch the clouds, I found less and less time to look at the sky.

A part of it was still there, some gravitational pull. I think I was just waiting for something to happen. Anything to happen.

Then one day, it did. That event made me realise that I no longer wanted to be in the backseat of my life. I wanted to decide where I go and how I get there.

I was inspired to push outwards and upwards. I began scrambling the mountains around Cape Town and soon found myself exploring the landscapes of Norway and Switzerland.

Choosing adventure

These past few years, I’ve been on big and small adventures, and I have come to appreciate both.

Adventures aren’t as daunting and dangerous as I thought they needed to be or about good guys and bad guys. Adventures are about doing something unusual or something exciting. It’s a change from the daily routine and trying something new.

So on winter mornings, I head to the hills to watch foxes frolic in the snow. Or I wake up early to catch the sunrise. Girls’ night out(side) has also become a special tradition. Forest bathing is my new hobby.

I’ve learned to hike alone, swim in lakes fed by glaciers, and make a pretty good cup of coffee outside.

Last year, I was selected as the Via Alpina Explorer. I hiked 260 km across Switzerland, climbing 9 alpine passes. This is one of my favourite adventures, and I encountered unique alpine environments and cultures.

It was an experience I couldn’t even dream of as a kid from the Klein Karoo in South Africa.

In doing all of this, I realised that I could put myself in the way of adventure and in the way of wonder. It’s an act of choice. And I’m so excited to see what I choose next!