Cities, I had realised, offer us permission to live in our own shells. Millions of people, cocooned inside their own mind, their car, their office, moving from one place to another, not looking, not observing, not breathing in, not stopping. In reality, there were a lot of similarities between the trail and a huge city, such as London or Auckland. You can be very lonely in a city, surrounded by people, so perhaps it is better to be lonely in the bush: in the bush, at least, the loneliness makes sense.
