A Passage in Time

Trekking through the martian landscape of Kanu-Breakaways Conservation Park near Cooby Pedy. Photograph: Sophie Matterson.

Words: Lesley Apps. Photography: Sophie Matterson.

Sophie Matterson’s epic camel trek across Australia’s fattest, driest stretch was never about finding herself.

How could it be when she was busy being coach to team dromedary, a worried mama bear to a caravan of five strapping juveniles, shucked from station plains outside Uluru and parented by her guiding hand for a solid year before they all went packing into uncharted territory.  

There were maps involved of course, a satellite phone and GPS, plenty of careful planning, but this almost 5000km odyssey that began in Shark Bay and finished in Byron wasn’t about bucket lists or sponsorships. It was borne out of a love and deep-found admiration for these ships of the desert and a burning desire to walk alongside them in their natural environment.

Matterson’s introduction to camels came off the back of a yearning for more adventure after her career in commercial TV lost its lustre.

The movie Tracks (based on the memoir of Robyn Davidson’s camel crossing from Alice to the WA coast) had just come out and the production coordinator was feeling “a little bit disillusioned making adverts”.

“I was looking into doing something temporary, a summer job, and Dad piped up and said - 'you know there are  people milking camels now'.” 

Growing up around animals on semi-rural property on the outskirts of Brisbane, farming was something she had previously given thought to. Competitive horse riding and a diverse education that swung from the "little bit hippy” Steiner primary education to the high-achieving environment of Brisbane Girls’ Grammar, might explain why head girl Matterson “went rogue” instead of the traditional doctor-lawyer path.

The Sunshine Coast dairy work she found through a school friend “snowballed” to overseas camel sojourns to the USA and sabbaticals alongside the nomads in India before returning to Australia and eventually the Flinders Ranges where her introduction to trekking began.

“That’s when I fell in love with the Australian outback and walking with camels. I knew then and there I wanted to do this with camels of my own.”

Despite the parallels (they were also both Brisbane girls), Matterson insists she was no Robyn Davidson. “She was always attracted to the purity of the desert. To me it was more like whoa, I’d never been anywhere this bare and this dry. The landscape blew me away.”

It was however, the solo aspect of Davidson’s journey that was a direct hit to Matterson’s adventurous spirit. 

And adventure was always going to be front and centre with four young males - Mack, Jude, Clayton and Charlie - and female Delilah in tow. 

What the camels lacked in years, they made up for in size. Matterson was a diminutive figure next to this party of five she steered and grappled through all manner of terrain. 

The top of her head didn’t quite reach their shoulder bulk, her hand stretched to maximum height, was lucky to meet the bottom of their famous humps. Necks and heads rose well above that. An average of 700 kilos per camel. That’s three and a half tonne of responsibility plus load weight she had serendipitously signed up for. 

The early days of the trek were all-consuming. 

“At times I felt a bit like a psychotic mother out there. Fretting and worrying about them doing something dangerous and hurting themselves. There was laughter and tears, but I’d also have bursts of insane anger. Bit ashamed now about all the yelling at them, ‘don’t do that stupid’.”

Other days were quieter and would drag on, which is understandable when you’re spending six to eight hours walking. 

But there were times when Matterson said she didn’t need a podcast or music to get by. 

“I was just totally content and fascinated in the landscape. The act of walking is very meditative. Always appreciated I was getting to see everything in a huge amount of detail.”

Those days of walking were to grow in number when Matterson realised two months into the trip that it wasn’t going to come off within the designated cooler seasons of a year. 

Camels that had never trekked or carried loads before, and a drought that robbed them of feeding opportunities began to take their toil. “I’d been far too optimistic so the whole thing had to be slowed down.”

Although disappointed, splitting the trip across two years proved to be the “absolute the best thing” for Matterson and her five companions.

“I really appreciated my first year out walking because it was how we cut our teeth. It was just me and the camels, very isolated, very tough, all very new.  My biggest pride was making it through that first year. After the summer break, we all went into the second year so much happier.” 

Now she is off the unbeaten track, Matterson’s appreciation of the weight walking the expanse of a continent alone with animals can have on one’s psyche. 

“Probably one of the biggest realisations that came early on, and part of the reason for doing it alone, was that I had no-one else to rely on. I had to completely rely on myself, and that really pushed me on.

“I remember in the early days lying down and crying because it was terrible feed for the camels or something had gone wrong, knowing that no one else was going to comfort me and pick me up off the ground or talk me into getting going again. There was nothing other than having the responsibility of looking after the camel’s continuously."

Matterson said it eventually occurred to her, how strong and resilient and capable she’d become. 

“How much grit I had developed, especially through the Great Victoria Desert where it felt like an unfathomably long and remote way. I never really thought of turning back or felt overwhelmed to the point that I couldn’t do it.”

When Matterson reached the end of that giant line in the sand with her five other biggest achievements (the kids had blossomed into much more relaxed, mature camels), the patience and perseverance she drew down was a revelation in how anything can be achieved when you don’t set yourself up for failure.

“Allowing myself the extra time to do it and then compartmentalising that time, was a big thing for me. I never looked at the trip as a whole thing. That would be too much. I broke it down in phases and stages, into bite sized chunks, how far to the next water hole, especially when it got tough.”

“It’s like that old fable says, it’s about putting one foot in front of the other.”

Sophie is releasing a book about her trip, due out next year. Follow her on Instagram for updates  @sophiematterson. Lesley Apps is a writer from Grafton, NSW  @lesleyappswriter.