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Week 3 Lucy Barnard, Tangles + Tail

Back in January of 2018 I shared a story on my Instagram about Lucy and her walk she was on. I thought others should be being inspired by her walk because it wasn’t just any old walk.

When my school did a walkathon in grade 12, we walked 80kms in 24 hours. People I tell that to say that’s crazy, they only walked 5 or 10 km. 

Lucy might laugh at all our walkathon lengths, seeing that the moment she’s 14242 km’s into her little walk. And she’s got a bit further to go as walks from the southernmost point of South America to the highest point of Alaska. She’s made it to Wyoming in the USA so far, clocking up the title of the first woman to walk the length of South America.

So pretty accurate for Australian Geographic to have named her their Adventurer of the Year for 2025.

Lucy messaged me back when I shared that story 5 years ago, and since then, I’ve followed along and had random chats with her.

When I saw she was heading back to Australia for a little bit of a forced break (a 2 1/2-year delay caused by COVID ate most of her USA visa), we made loose plans for a portrait.

Even on the morning of the shoot, the plans were loose. Meet at her hotel at 5.30 am. The pick-up was the only thing that went to plan.

The rain killed my loose plans for a sunrise shoot, so what else do you do when you meet a friend? Take them for coffee! Well, we waited for coffee, as good Melbourne friends don’t take out-of-town friends to McDonald’s for coffee. 

Degraves Street was one of the spots I always loved, and while we were waiting for it to open this shot just appeared. We were kindly let in to wait for them to set up, and I grabbed these couple of snaps.

Lucy said it was pretty representative of what it’s typically like on the road when she hits a town: she finds coffee, updates her socials, and gets on with logistics for the next part of the trip.

We did end up with some light a little later, as we hit our second coffee shop within an hour. I had bought a toy wombat to represent her dog, Wombat, who was walking with her.

So, follow along Lucy and wombat’s adventures over on Instagram at Tangles And Tail

Oh for the photographers out there, yep, that is the light on the phone doing the lighting in this main shot.

Next week’s portrait is another inspiring person at the top of his game… which is excellent even if he is a New Zealander.

Follow along the Photobat Instagram to see the rest of the shots from this challenge. Or visit the challenge page to see who’s already been snapped.