The Beginning of The Walkabout

I was barefoot and pregnant at twenty, living in the Australian outback — some of the most desolate land in the country. This is where my story truly began. Not in comfort or certainty, on a rugged dirt road an hour from the town of Winton, famously linked to Waltzing Matilda, in Queensland, the home of Qantas Airlines. Life there stripped everything back. There was no illusion, no escape — only land, heat, and the reality of what it meant to survive and keep going.

In my upcoming memoir, The Spiritual Walkabout: Conversations through Fire, Darkness and Light, I share some of the intimate moments that shaped my life — years shadowed by judgment, isolation, and echoes reminiscent of The Thorn Birds. But instead of an affair with a priest, I encountered the cruel and wicked tongue of my soon-to-be mother-in-law, Mercy — and a town that did all it could to wipe me off the face of the earth.

Two days on a train, looking out the window, watching the green landscapes turn brown, I wondered how anything could actually survive out here. Not a tree in sight. The mountains faded just as quickly. By the time I arrived, I stepped onto an old train station that looked more like something from a western cowboy film. I had no idea what to expect, except that conditions were going to be rough.

A month earlier, I had celebrated my nineteenth birthday. I was restless and ready for adventure. I didn’t fear much, if anything at all, but curiosity soon became the better of me once I came face to face with country folk who didn’t take kindly to pretty girls from the coast. That was when I met Kassy, who had travelled from Tasmania to work as a jillaroo — a female station hand — mustering sheep and cattle and helping around the homestead. We met on the platform, stepping off the same train.

I wasn’t perplexed by being an outsider; it had been part of my childhood. My family immigrated by ship from the United Kingdom when I was two and a half, travelling from New South Wales up to the Sunshine State and settling on the Gold Coast.

The outback, and my constant trekking between towns, cities, and countries became a deep immersion into how people and environments shape perspective, belief systems, and understanding. I was an optimist, always hopeful, brushing off negativity when I could. Yet over time, my spirit was slowly carved into despair, as loneliness drew me inward and opened me to an inner world — and awakenings to possibilities far greater than I had imagined.

My Spiritual Walkabout began here — in the moment I conceived Lee, my little angel, who lived for two years before he died. And it is here I will leave you with this:

Nothing and no one is ever quite as they appear.

On February 28th, 1986 — forty years ago — Lee drowned. And the baby I had given birth to only weeks earlier was caught in the middle of what I have come to call conversations between fire, darkness, and light.

What began then continues now — not as memory, but as lived integration. With time, experience, and many returns to the edge of what life asks of us, I learned how to walk this terrain consciously — how to remain present inside thresholds rather than be overtaken by them. I no longer write from within the fire, but from the clarity forged by it. Retreat of Dreams is one place where this walkabout is now shared — not as a story, not as instruction, but as immersion — an invitation to step out of survival, listen deeply, and meet life from a steadier, truer place within.

Nothing Is by Chance

Over time, I’ve noticed the way certain dates, seasons, and gateways of life quietly echo one another. Lee’s life, and the 40th anniversary of his passing, His birthday. Easter. And now, the timing of the retreat. Coincidental, serendipitous, or synergetic?

I don’t offer this as meaning to be assigned, only as something witnessed — the way life sometimes arranges itself with a precision that can’t be planned. When I look at the timeline now, from my current perspective, I don’t feel shock or urgency. I feel recognition. And a deep respect for how moments, once scattered and shattered, begin to speak to one another when we’re finally still enough to listen.

Those who feel called to explore this walkabout through lived experience can learn more at Retreat of Dreams.