Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of emotional abuse, gender discrimination, and mental health, specifically depression, suicidal ideation, and anxiety.

Davidson’s accounting of her solo journey through the Australian interior captures the impact of extended periods of isolation on an individual’s self-discovery. Davidson goes to Alice Springs to prepare for her desert trek—a trip she hopes will help her shed her familial, social, and cultural trappings. However, during her time with Kurt, she becomes “withdrawn and [finds] it hard to relax” and starts to “enjoy the company of animals better than people” (29, 31). Her alienation from her support system amplifies her anxiety, and at times augments her depression. While she learns to rely on herself during her time in Alice, her isolation makes it more difficult for her to communicate and collaborate with others. This form of solitude challenges Davidson to examine more fraught aspects of her character—particularly her sometimes uncompromising and angry tendencies.

Simultaneously, the various forms of solitude Davidson experiences throughout her trip help her to confront her past, grapple with her self-doubt and insecurities, and deconstruct the social conditioning she’s inadvertently accepted. Loneliness, she soon discovers, is not her enemy, and being on her own opens her up to a new level of experience and understanding: