I would like to formally apologise to my own legs.

The pitch the night before, made over the third beer at a riverside pub somewhere outside Cairns, was that the four of us would tackle a 14-kilometre rainforest trail at sunrise. Steve had a guidebook. Steve was very confident. Steve, in retrospect, was also very drunk, and so was the rest of the table, which is how four people aged 33 to 41 found themselves agreeing to a sunrise hike.

I woke at 5:50 AM to my own snoring. I had slept in my clothes. My head was a percussion section. My mouth tasted like an old penny. Steve was already at the trailhead, somehow looking exactly as alive as he had the night before, which I suspect is some sort of personality disorder masquerading as resilience.

Kilometre one: regret

The trail starts at a gentle incline. To a sober person, this is welcoming. To a hungover person, this is the moment the body realises what is being asked of it. By the time we hit the first mossy log crossing I had developed a deep philosophical curiosity about whether legs are technically necessary for life. The answer, sadly, is yes.

The view was spectacular. I will not pretend I noticed. I was looking at my own feet, willing them to do the next step.

Kilometre five: bargaining

“Look at this view,” said Steve.

I looked. There was a waterfall. It was extraordinary. Birds I had only ever seen in nature documentaries were doing things in the canopy. The light was hitting the moss in a way that reminded me, vaguely, of better times.

“Beautiful,” I said.

I sat on a wet rock. I did not get up for some time. The rock was the most comfortable rock that has ever existed. Mara took a photo of me on the rock. I will be carrying that photo as a souvenir of personal limitation for the rest of my life.

Kilometre nine: clarity

Something happened around kilometre nine. The headache faded. The legs loosened. The colours of the forest became almost too saturated. There is a thing that happens to a hangover when you sweat hard enough for long enough; you push through the misery and emerge into a kind of clean serenity. Endorphins. Dehydration. The reset of the human spirit.

I made eye contact with a kangaroo at the edge of a clearing. We held it for what felt like an entire minute. The kangaroo did not blink. I did not blink. Eventually the kangaroo decided I was not worth the social investment and bounced into the trees. I felt judged. Fairly.

Kilometre fourteen: the lesson

We finished. There were beers waiting at the carpark, because Steve had thought of everything. I drank one and felt absolutely nothing, which is the best beer there is.

The lesson is not that you should hike hungover. You should not. The lesson is that some of the best views are on the days you nearly didn’t leave the cabin. The trail is kinder than your hangover. The kangaroo doesn’t care. The waterfall will be there whether you arrived in good shape or in disgrace.

Show up anyway. Sit on the wet rock. Take the bad photo. Get to kilometre nine.

From Travel Fails & Epic Tales. The book has 50 of these. Roughly 12 involve me being judged by an animal.