Going solo...

The experience changed her life. After seven months she decided there was no more thinking left to be done and returned home to bring about radical change.

Within a month, she had moved to the Lake District. A career in the fast line, latterly as a Bristol-based project consultant with a major blue-chip company, was over.

Her father's family had once lived in Skelwith, and the woman who had found the finer things in life in mountains and wildernesses, decided to return to her roots.

Working initially with Outward Bound, in Eskdale, she then moved to Brathay, as the training centre's business development manager.

Throughout her round-the-world epic, she had kept a diary and has been working it up into an inspirational book - One Woman's Walk - which she has decided to publish herself.

Now ready to hit the shops, it tells the story of how a lone diminutive figure pitted herself against high peaks and vast lonely landscapes, where treks could last for days without seeing another soul.

Months of intense planning over, the trip of a lifetime loomed. Jane had cried all the way to the airport, her belongings crammed into a 55-litre rucksack. She didn't know then how long her journey would last, only that she would stay away as long as she needed to.

"My first stop was Chile and I was totally unprepared. I hadn't even put up my tent before. In the morning, there were puma footprints around the pitch."

Jane had developed a passion for high altitude a couple of years earlier, when she realised a dream and climbed Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro. It opened doors to endless possibilities.

"I'd been married and divorced, and was working too hard, putting in 50 to 60 hours a week. There was no social life anymore. Basically, my life had stopped, and work became a foil for my unhappiness.

"That was until I saw something about Kilimanjaro in a Sunday supplement and decided I should do it."

A dedicated skier, Jane had once spent a couple of seasons working in the French Alps and taught English for a year in northern Spain, adding Spanish to her French and German skills.

There had been long-haul adventures to Sri Lanka and South Africa, so Jane was not without travel know-how.

"The time had simply come for big, life-changing decisions. I wanted a major physical challenge.

"I don't have a lot of stamina. At 5ft 1in, I'm not a big roughty-toughty. I like things to be nice. I had a very nice house at the time.

"But I thought, if I never did anything else in my whole life, I would have to do a round-the-world trip. I was full of enthusiasm and belief. I no longer wanted work to control my life."

Jane let her employment contract run out, rented out her house and garaged the car.

She had taken a world map, stuck in flags where she had already been, and pinned in all the places she wanted to go.

Itinerary sorted - she was to take in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Easter Island, Tahiti, New Zealand and Nepal - there was no going back.

"Travelling alone in the wilds didn't faze me, although I suppose I was a target. I figured I had been in far greater danger when I was in London.

"In fact, I went for days without seeing another soul, and when I did come across peasants, they asked for my autograph."

The only time she felt threatened was when she hitched a lift in New Zealand and found herself sharing a car with convicted criminal Freddie Angel.

"I was suspicious, even before he told me about his record," explained Jane. "The pick-up truck was full of chains. Apparently, he was famous for animal trading.

"I started to get so nervous I asked to be dropped off. As he drove away, I realised I left behind my bum-bag containing all my money, passport, airline tickets. By the time I got to the nearest police station, it had already been handed in."

She failed to keep track of how many miles she covered (it was hundreds) or how many dozen mountains she climbed.

By the time she hit Nepal she said there was nothing left to think about. It was time to go home.

"There had been so much time to dig up everything from my life. It was truly cathartic. It felt as though there was nothing left and I needed to go back and get some more input into my life."

Planning her journey, Jane found inspiration in a few travel books - but nothing written by a woman, at her stage of life, wanting to take a year out.

She hopes by sharing her experiences she might inspire others to follow her lead.

Living in Windermere, Jane has carved out a complete new life for herself, post expedition.

She is an assessor for the Cumbria panel of the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award, has learned how to cave, and immersed herself into local mining history.

"Friends I have made through Cumbria Amenity Trust encouraged me to publish my book," explained a happy and contended Jane Moreland.

One Woman's Walk, written and published by Jane Moreland, will be on the shelves at good bookshops in the very near future.

February 13, 2003 09:30