I Spent My Day Off Walking 64km for the Hell of It

Inspired by his favourite YouTuber and a perfect winter’s day, Josh left his front door for a 64km walk – a personal best challenge that quickly turned into an absurdly rewarding adventure.

We Are Explorers acknowledges that this adventure is located on the traditional Country of the Kaurna people who have occupied and cared for the lands, waters, and their inhabitants for thousands of years. We pay our respects to them as the Traditional Custodians and recognise that sovereignty was never ceded.

From my desk, the Adelaide Hills rose in the office window like a work of art. Sunbeams slice through low-hanging clouds, brushing light across the same ridgeline I’d hiked almost to the day five years earlier, with a loaded pack and a thousand Heysen Trail kilometres under my boots.

On that day, I’d roamed three wonderfully lush conservation parks before hauling myself up to Mt Lofty. Bathed in sunlight, I was tired, wild-eyed and grinning like a loon, my brain weightless and unburdened.

Read more: The Abundant Landscapes of Australia’s Longest-Marked Hiking Trail

Now, I was stuck inside under the hum of fluoro lights, tethered to a laptop, detached, as a streak of flawless South Australian winter days slipped by. Somewhere in the full-time grind, I’d lost touch – with the outdoors, with my people, with myself. Enough was enough. Tomorrow was mine. Just like that, my leave form was approved with a knowing smile. (Cheers, boss.)

Midweek Rebellion

The demotivated nine-to-fiver in me craved a day on the couch picking through a party-size bag of salt and vinegar chips. But Wednesday freedom doesn’t come along often when you’re shackled to a steady paycheck. If it ever arrives, you move, regardless of how lazy you feel.

I’ve always loved YouTuber Beau Miles’ knack for plucking challenges out of thin air, just because he can – sleeping in a gum tree, eating his bodyweight in beans, turning the mundane into the ridiculous, then into the binge-worthy. There’s no medal at the end, no fundraising tally, no purpose beyond seeing what happens when you say yes to something seemingly daft and a little uncomfortable.

Yes, I’m sure he still spends hours indoors, hunched over in the editing suite, but those arbitrary adventures spark the kind of inspiration and motivation you can’t get wholly from a screen. I needed that jolt (even if I ended up back at the keyboard writing an article for We Are Explorers two years later). A Beau Miles–style ‘experiment’ was my nudge out the door.

For the past three months, I’d been housesitting in Brighton, a stone’s skim from Adelaide’s long, continuous sweep of metro beachfront, curving all the way to North Haven. On morning jaunts, I’d wondered what it’d be like to walk the whole coast in one go. For a long-distance hiker, this sandy stretch of Kaurna Country felt more routine than ridiculous. I needed something that made zero practical sense and made me question my life choices.

My single-day PB distance was 52km – trekked between O Cebreiro and Ferreiros on the Camino. An out-and-back beach romp, with a couple of strategic ice cream stops, would easily beat it. From my front door, rough Google Maps maths had the journey at 64km. That settled it: a lengthy stretch of sand, two semi-willing legs, and a whimsical goal. Beau would’ve titled it ‘I Spent My Day Off Walking 64km for the Hell of It’.

Read more: Our Fave Beau Miles Films Ever – The We Are Explorers Team Weighs In

A Shift in Purpose

I set off early, house in order, cat fed, brain wired – the plan was simple: chase my PB, eat ice cream, limp home salty, sandy, and smug. The bait was set. Once I was moving, the day and my thoughts could unravel however they chose.

Luckily, Adelaide’s beachfront was in on the escapade: a gentle sea breeze, the tide drawn low, sand packed firm as if rolled smooth just for me.

With much of the city plying their weekday trades, the coast belonged to a handful of misfits. A bloke lugging a monstrous rucksack plodded by through the dunes, offering a nod that said, ‘I see your nonsense and raise you mine’.

Somewhere near Somerton Park, I stopped obsessing over my step counter, replaced by tallies of jetties, dolphins, and seagull-chasing pooches. Without realising, the walk had morphed from mission to alibi – a cover for a random bloke ambling Adelaide’s beaches, counting other people’s pets.

The waves clapped half-heartedly at my feet, the sun leaned heavy on my back, and I slipped into meditation – the longest, full-body reboot I’d had in months.

Connecting With Community

Despite all the wholesome nature therapy, my millennial attention span buckled, and I began firing off Insta stories. Notifications rolled in straight away: encouragement, bewilderment, and a sprinkle of envy from office-bound mates watching me galumph up the coast.

By Henley Beach, I uploaded my first ice cream pic; in historic Semaphore, I upgraded to a burrito. Here, the feedback blew up – nothing bonds a hiking community like vicarious eating.

Posting mid-walk wasn’t only about inducing food FOMO – it was my way of checking in with my trail family, the same dirtbag crew who’d cheered me through multi-day treks while I followed their adventures from afar. Every ping was a high-five from across the globe. While my legs slogged inland through Taperoo’s scrubby dunes, skirting around North Haven Marina, my brain floated, warmed by the strange glow of this virtual campfire.

Chasing the Numbers

The halfway mark ticked over at North Haven’s Outer Harbour lookout. Five and a half hours on the clock, 31.45km under my feet, average speed holding at 5.67km/h. Not bad for a relapsed office worker. It was hardly a mountain top, but with Gulf St Vincent stretched out beyond and the digits rolling over, it felt like my summit.

I reclined on the park bench, sucking at my bottle and stalling the return leg. I clearly needed the water – the salt crust baked onto my shirt looked like a badly-glazed pretzel.

Walking back past West Beach SLSC, the incoming tide nudged me onto a jagged rock breakwall. Somewhere in the scramble, I reached 53km and broke my PB. A couple on the surf club balcony, halfway through their sundowners, raised their glasses in my direction. I couldn’t tell if it was cheer or laughter, but either way, the breeze carried their hooting down, and it landed like applause. I clambered up to the esplanade, limbs flopping to the pavement like a groggy pelican, but the absurd sense of achievement lingered.

With my iPhone battery matching my human battery at 10%, I turned flight mode on and switched everything else off. The sun sank behind Glenelg’s kilometre of beachfront Norfolk pines, leaving me with just the waves, a few after-work joggers, and the satisfying thought that I was finally on the home stretch.

Sore But Satisfied

Home at last, Bailey was waiting by the door like I’d been gone a week. I tipped out his tuna, peeled off my salt-crusted clothes and glanced at the watch: 63.98km. Seriously? I slipped my thongs on for one quick, lopsided lap around the clothesline – half-naked, fully-exhausted – just to see the number tick over: 64.00km with 77,715 steps. I was done.

But the rewards ran deep: a full day stitched together with ice cream, burritos, vitamin D, cheers from strangers, and that wonderful thread of community pinging from my phone. Records didn’t matter. Speed didn’t matter. Just me, a long line of sand, the ocean for company, and a brain full of ideas. It was about proving to myself, yet again, that the simple act of walking opens the world in ways no screen ever will.

Hiking is More Than Just Walking

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