Walk2Recovery
Originally published in The Nyngan Weekly
Travelling along the Mitchell Highway is a man and his dog, walking for a cause. Benjamin Scott and his German Sheppard Frankie are walking from Sydney to Darwin in an effort to raise funds and awareness for mental health and addiction.
In recovery himself, the 12-step program wasn’t for Mr Scott, and with rehab centres not pet friendly, he decided to come up with his own recovery.
The Walk2Recovery is a solo-man, solo-powered journey with six milestones, eventually leading him to Anchorage, Alaska, USA.
“In my own ambitious nature I came up with this. It’s broken down into six milestones. The nature of each milestone is the impossibility of it.
“Overcoming each milestone is to bare an example that you can overcome that impossible.”
Between Sydney and Alaska Mr Scott has set milestones at Darwin, Thailand, Beijing, Russia, and the north-east Russian border.
He hasn’t set a time frame for himself, but is taking each day as it comes and planning for the next milestone once he reaches the one before it.
“We break up each milestone to be their own stand alone journey. Once I get to Darwin I’ll regroup and start on the next one.” Before he started his journey Mr Scott’s father reconnected with his birth family, and they discovered
Benjamin wasn’t the only one who enjoyed a stroll. “Unbeknownst to us, my biological aunty has walked across the world, 12,000km across the desert. We had absolutely no idea.”
Sore, but in good spirits, Mr Scott made his way into Nyngan late on Monday night, where he’ll stay for a few days to recover. His 60km Nevertire to Nyngan journey was the longest he’s gone in a day and brought both highs and lows.
“I left in the morning from Nevertire, and I got to the 40km mark and hit a wall. Then just as all hope was lost, someone pulled over and gave me a can of coke and some ice cold water. Then 10 minutes later one of my donors from Trangie stopped.., I thought okay they world wants me to get to Nyngan.”
Taking each day as it comes, Mr Scott walks at his own pace and to the pace of Frankie, with no desire to be in any place at a certain time.
“Sometimes the energy just isn’t there. You’ll push a bit harder because in town there’s hot food and a shower, if I can make it between towns I definitely go for it.”
Frankie has been thriving on the journey so far, and the companionship for Mr Scott has been immeasurable.
“He’s a lot like me, he is a go and being outside 24/7 is the best but there is time where it is too hot or he gets tired. Even when you find shade he struggles.” Having Frankie alongside him has helped when times are tough.
“I’m with my best mate and he does help with my loneliness a lot.” Help though he may, sometimes the lows just keep coming.
“Times do get tough, when you haven’t had a shower in five days and you get a popped tyre and you’re out on your own and the social media isn’t going off and you’re not really raising awareness because there’s no one there to see it. That’s the lowest lows, it’s like what the hell am I doing out here? I stink, I’m uncomfortable, I haven’t slept in three or four days.
“But then something amazing happens each day.”
Mr Scott has taken a “one foot in front of the other” approach to his journey and is unsure when he’ll reach Darwin. “The thing is, if I looked all the way to the end, I’d never leave, and it’d never happen. So at the most I look to Darwin, it’s about the moment.”
Mr Scott is fundraising as he travels, in the hope of setting up a recovery centre once he returns to Sydney, whenever that may be.
“It’s not about the timing but upon my return in however many years, I want to open a recovery centre.
“The 12-step program wasn’t for me, so I want to paint a path for unconventional recovery methods.”
And of course, he will make sure it is pet friendly.
Mr Scott is documenting his journey through social media, in the hopes more people will become aware to the reality of addiction and mental health issues.