For this Mother’s Day, we asked Walk1200km participants about walking with their mums or mums walking with their children – and what it means to them.

Suzanne Watson is a solo parent with four children who loves to get out with all her kids, including hunting with her teenage boys. She’s a member of LandSAR, where, she says, “I learn skills I can pass onto the kids.” But when it comes to Walk1200km, it’s her four-year-old daughter who inspires her. “She comes on all evening walks with me and it’s turning into the best part of my day.” 

This is their together time, and Suzanne says, “It allows me uninterrupted time to talk, discover, get fit and bond with no distractions but the path in front.”

Bonding is a theme among the magazine’s readers and walkers, with some saying it’s about shared experiences and creating memories, and some saying it’s about working together to overcome challenges. 

Lou Days, 53, and her son Harvey, 15, hike together at every opportunity and find each balances the other out. Where Lou has doubts about her abilities, Harvey “is a great cheerleader and will often sing out to me ‘you’re doing great Mum, you got this!’ as I huff and puff up the trail behind him.” 

While Lou keeps track of gear, wea-ther reports and food, Harvey is the blue sky thinker, reminding her of how amazing it can be. “He brings a sense of being present to my over-anxious parent vibe.” Lou believes it’s made them stronger, “and, if possible, there is more love and respect between us. I have realised he is a capable and dependable young man, and he is proud of how I push through the tough times. But most of all, we now plan adventures together; to challenge us and create those memories and experiences that we can continue to treasure.”

Walk1200km is by nature a question of pace, and parents and children are in different age groups. For Heidi Jade, helping her visually impaired mother achieve a half marathon goal for her 80th birthday is a compromise: “I try to slow my pace to match hers, but also she walks a bit faster when she is with me, and we are busy talking.” The walks have changed them both. Heidi’s mum, Jean Sales, has become more focused and fit with her training schedule of walks complemented with a treadmill at the retirement home. And for Heidi, “Before, it was always ‘mum and dad’, but doing this walk with Mum has helped me to really get to know her as a person.” 

Beginning from an everyday average of 3000 steps at the start of their training, Heidi says, “Mum would get quite puffed. But now we are doing over 10km, and she is not puffed.” 

Walking in someone else’s shoes is an apt metaphor here because, as Heidi says, “Mum has very low vision so she can’t go on walks by herself. It has been good learning for me as I walk alongside her to get to know the challenges she faces and to help her. My mum is an amazing inspiration to me, of courage and determination and finding joy in the small things.” 

Walking the full 1200km distance is immaterial for these two because “what has mattered has been the goal and the enjoyment of putting your mind to something and working on it bit by bit”.

While Mother’s Day is lovely to celebrate with families, for some it’s a time of remembrance. Amanda Collins says, “My mother walks with my every step, though sadly she no longer leaves footprints.” 

This is interesting, because the next thing Amanda will tell you is that walking wasn’t part of her childhood. “As a low-decile family raised in a city, it was never a family activity.” She became bitten by the tramping bug after her mother’s death. “However, it was her words that were the nudge. A call was made to school parents for volunteers to supervise Duke of Edinburgh Award groups, and Mum often said, ‘If not you, then who? If not now, then when?’ So that was it!” 

Amanda is now an experienced tramper and says her mother comes with her on most walks, especially when solo tramping. “I show her the wonderful landscapes she can see through my eyes, and she tells me that there really is no monster under the bunks in the huts when I’m alone at night. When I’m tramping in a group, it’s her words or a joke she told, or would have laughed at. So, while she’s not here, she’s beside me, to chide for a forgotten thing, to encourage when I feel small or daunted, and to nudge me onward, because if not me, then who? And if not now, then when?”