Meet 15-year-old Eliot Barton, she’s one of the 19 young people to complete the Y WA’s ‘Kokoda Leadership Development Program’ which sees participants hike through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea.
The Kalamunda local chose to take-on the challenge so she could “travel more” and “experience new things”.
“The thing that really made me really wanna do it, at that point, was just it was a really good free opportunity to travel and experience this awesome new thing (sic),” Barton told the Newsflash show.
The trek started on March 26th which was a day of doubt for Barton.
“I didn’t know that I was able to do it, but I felt confident enough that I had to try it anyway. I definitely, as I got into it, I felt a lot more settled and confident in the fact that I was prepared. Getting on the plane, it was the most nervous I ever was, as it was a real thing I was doing,” she told Isaac Mulcrone.
Despite the nerves Barton says there was “no way (I) was going to turn back”.
The hike ran to April 6th with participants, from around Western Australia, and was full of “environmental challenges” including humidity and rain.
Now that Ms Barton is back on home-soil she feels she can take on anything, with the trek giving her a new mentality.
“I am telling you, you do get a lot of that when you come back, like, for me, it’s in relation to myself. I feel like I can do hard things now. Now that I’ve been able to do that suddenly a lot of the challenges that I’ve been thinking about, upcoming in my life, are a little more small. A little easier to overcome,” Barton told listeners.
Hear more about Eliot’s journey and some of the physical challenges she had to overcome by clicking play.
