'Walking to Work' Extract from The Backyard Adventurer (2021)

Abstract

This paper is an extract from Beau Mile’s The Backyard Adventurer (2021) published by Brio Books. It is the text of the voiceover for the corresponding film ‘Walking 90 Kms to work’ available on Youtube  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Zyud8xh2c – Miles redefines adventure through his attempts to transform a mundane part of his life into an adventure. The first part of the text details missing travel and adventure when increasingly locked into a regular lifestyle, before deconstructing the necessity of travelling great distances or pushing oneself to extremes in order to experience adventure. In an attempt to demonstrate his argument, Miles decides to walk to work instead of driving. He documents his mindset and experiences when completing his daily 90km commute from a semi-rural lifestyle block to the inner city campus of the university where he works. The simple of idea of “walking to work” reveals how distanced we are from the spaces that surround our transport routes; how insulated we have become from the world around us. The text and film provides an intriguing performance of the philosophy that it articulates.