I had never felt such a pure and extreme agony before. Nothing came close. Willing my legs to keep moving, I shook my face and hoped that no one saw the tears that I couldn't stop from flowing down my cheeks.

Everyone else was miles ahead of me; they couldn't know how much pain I was in. A sob broke out of my chest, causing my throat to clench tighter, the air whistling as it pulled in and out of my lungs. I can't do this.

And up ahead, I could see a monstrous hairpin turn, looming like coiled dragon, poised to destroy me.

The day had begun so well. Despite my hangover, I'd rallied everyone to pack up and get moving quickly. The weather was on our side, and we squinted in the brilliant sunshine as we looked at the sheer volume of crap we planned to take with us.

"No way does all of that fit," said Bailey, gesturing at the pile.

I agreed, but rather than freak out, I organised everyone like worker ants, diving the massive pile into smaller piles. "This pile is the essentials," I explained. "Food and shelter. These piles are the nice to haves – bed rolls, toiletries, stuff we can live without but it would be great if we didn't have to. Everything else is non-essentials – clothing and personal items. This is what we need to cull."

"No!" squeaked Nev, clutching her hair straightener and makeup bag closer.

"Nev, don't be that girl," scorned Bailey. "Where are you even going to plug that into?"

My eyes narrowed at Bailey's tone, and I wondered if this harshness was in defiance of our chat on the beach earlier.

But then Bailey spoke softly. "Look, no one is going to Snap Chat you anytime soon. Let go a little bit. You're completely gorgeous without all this crap anyway."

"I am?" Nev sounded like the thought had never occurred to her before; that scrubbed and natural, she could be beautiful. She was, of course, because she was skinny. She didn't need perfectly flicked eyeliner and barrel curls when she had long limbs and a toned torso.

Annoyed, mostly at myself, I tore off another hank of the iced bun that was serving as breakfast. "So here's the deal: you want it, you carry it. Personal items go in your backpack. The essentials, we'll divide up between the six trailers."

"Five," interjected Rueben. "Mischa won't be able to tow a trailer."

Before I could reply, he quickly said, "I'll carry Mischa's share in my trailer."

"Carry an extra half load," I said, trying to be generous and atone for last night. "We'll split the other half between the other four adults."

We worked quickly, cramming, culling, considering, condensing. Nev agonised over whether she needed her eyelash curler more than an extra can of dog food. From what I could see in Simon's bag, he was packing about 90% alcohol and a box of baby wipes. "What?" he said when I asked him about clothes. "We're on the road for a couple of weeks, not the next decade. Surely there's a men's clothing store in Tassie I can pillage when we arrive?"

I forced everyone to add the rain-proof jackets to their bags, then we mounted up. From the first push of the pedals, I realised how heavy the trailer was. Even with its light-weight frame, it was filled with cans, bottles, sleeping bags and tents. Plus the backpack on my shoulders and the two-litre water bottle strapped to my crossbar.

Mischa sped past me, cheerily dinging the bell of her miniature ten-speed, and Nev and Bailey were animated and chatty as they headed out through the gates. I pushed after them, feeling like I was pedalling through sand.

Rueben pulled up beside me, pacing my bike. "We're off."

"We are." I glanced behind us at the Kombi, sitting forlornly in the driveway. "I'm sorry we have to leave your van."

"Me too. Lots of good memories." He grinned, tilting his helmet back. "She was my first car – my dad gave her to me and we did her up together."

"Cars don't have a gender," said Simon, pedalling past.

"Thank you, PC police," I called after him.

"He's right," said Rueben, chastised. "I have a daughter, I should do better. The van- she- it, brought my dad and me together. My mum left us when I was a teenager, and we needed something to focus on together."

"Where are your parents now?" I tried to keep my voice even, but I was already puffing as we tackled the hill that nearly flipped us last night.

"My dad died last year. I don't know where my mum is – she walked out one day, caught a flight back to where she grew up. I never heard from her again."

"I'm so sorry."

"I seem to have a history of the women in my life leaving."

It was bait in the water; I could sense him wanting me to ask him about the other women, and I knew it would be connected to Mischa. But the hill had steepened, turning my legs to jelly as I pushed each pedal down and I had no breath for speaking. I needed each gasp to fuel my lungs.

I can hop down and walk! The idea seemed so simple, but my pride threw me a withering look. You've been on the road for 30 seconds. Suck it up, please.

So rather than dismount, I stood up on the pedals and pushed on, using every ounce of my effort, traumatised memories of my one and only spin class assaulting me, the instructor yelling, bums up, let's go! My face burned as sweat instantaneously appeared and dripped down from my helmet line, and I tasted vomit at the back of my throat as I burped up bread and the ghost of last night's vodka. Just another ten pushes, I guessed, looking at the ridge. Nine, eight, seven... Okay, maybe fifteen more...

Finally we reached the crest and coasted over the top. "Are you okay?" ask Rueben, who'd waited for me at the top.

"Fine," I panted. "It's just been a while since I rode a bike."

Meanwhile, he didn't look like he'd broken a sweat, and up ahead I could see Mischa happily chatting with Bella in her dog bag on the back of Nev's bike. Rueben said, "Mish and I ride most weekends.

"Oh, you're one of those people."

"What people?"

We'd begun a gentle coast down the other side of the hill, and as far as I could see the road was either flat or sloped downwards. Comforted by the prospect of an easier ride for now, I said, "One of those ridiculously healthy people who run a marathon for fun and enjoy rock climbing socially."

"I... I've never run a marathon."

"I don't believe you."

"It was a half-marathon," he admitted, his cheeks darkening in a way that caused my stomach to flip.

"I knew it!"

"Look, when you have a kid, sometimes active events are the only child-friendly things you can do that are socially acceptable. I can't take Mish clubbing or off to see the latest Tarantino film, but we can surf together or hang out at an indoor climbing centre, and we both enjoy it."

My fingers clenched tight on the brakes. I'd managed to avoid kids for so long, to evade these feelings, and now they were being stirred up in me like silt in a deep lake. I asked a question to try and end the conversation. "So was Mischa's mum active too? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, I understand."

"Yes and no. She spent a lot of time at the gym, but she wasn't outdoorsy."

"I can empathise," I said, swatting a bug away from my lips.

He didn't offer more info, and I didn't ask. Instead, we cruised along the coastline, and for a while, it seemed like everything would be easy enough. The narrow road soon joined with a main street leading down to Wollongong, and the beachy bush turned to suburbia.

Again, it was quieter than I'd expected. The houses sat peacefully, cars thoughtfully pulled to the side of the road before being abandoned. Fierce Aussie pride bloomed in my chest for how well my country seemed to be coping in the face of disaster.

The road rose, turning to an overpass and skimming over most of Wollongong. I hadn't noticed how quiet everything was because of the wind rushing in my ears, but as we approached the city centre, shouts and bangs carried to us on the warm sea air.

"Boss, you should come look at this," said Bailey. They were waiting at the railing with Nev, the two of them craning their necks down to see a Kmart carpark below.

It was carnage. It was every zombie movie ever, but all the more horrific because it was real. Beneath us, people fought as if their lives depended on it, clawing and fighting over trolleyfuls of cookie packages, coffee canisters, soft drinks. There were men, women and teenagers in the fray; I watched one woman viciously rip a hank of hair from another woman's scalp, and then slam her head into a car door.

"Look, coppers," said Simon, who'd joined us silently. Two police officers ran up to the crowd, arms wide, pleading for order. I saw one of them reach for something on his belt, but a shot rang out and he keeled over.

People scattered like ants, screaming in panic. Two more shots and the other officer fell to her knees. A gang of youths approached them, brandishing shotguns in the bright spring sunshine. One guy, who couldn't have been older than twenty, aimed the gun directly at the first officer's head, and shot him point blank.

Nev whimpered, and turned to Bailey, crushing her face into their shirt. Bailey said softly, "It's okay, Nev. We'll be alright."

"We have to get out of here," I said woodenly. I checked that Rueben and Mischa hadn't been watching, and I was glad to see they were only just riding up behind us now. "Keep moving," I directed. "All of you."

We sped out of town as quickly as possible. Nothing else had changed; the roads were just as quiet and the sun still shone, but everything felt different and dangerous.

The suburbs dropped away and we coasted around Lake Illawarra in silence punctuated occasionally by Bella yipping at a bird or a dog through her carrier window.

We broke for lunch about three hours after we'd left the beach house, pulling the bikes to the side of the road onto a grassy verge. I dismounted on trembling legs, half-heartedly wondering if I'd lost any weight yet.

Lunch was a paltry energy bar and some Hydrolyte crystals mixed into our water bottles. Hunger tore at my insides, but I nibbled at my bar as if this was a perfectly proportioned meal.

Everyone seemed unusually quiet, the spectre of the police officers hanging over us. Bailey sat beside me. "Are you okay?"

"I... I don't want to talk about what happened back there." I rubbed my eyes, as if I could rub away the visual of the blood spurting out of the cop's skull before his body hit the ground. "I'll process it later. For now, I just need to focus on keeping us safe and moving."

"So... I have something to tell you."

"Yes?"

"Well, when Nev and I were choosing routes, we had a few options. If we left Sydney one way, there would be less hills initially, but more at the end. We chose this way instead."

Dread crawled over my skin like a mass of tiny spiders. "What's different about this way?"

"We have a big hill coming up, but then it's pretty much flat or downhill all the way to Melbourne. We figured that this was better because we're fresh right now, but in a week, we'll be exhausted."

"How big of a hill, Bailey?" I didn't want the answer, or at least I wanted it to be better than I was worried about.

"That big." Bailey nodded at looming mountain to our right.

I didn't have words for a moment. My jaw dropped open and a precious piece of high-protein caramel-flavoured energy bar tumbled out and onto the grass. Distracted, I contemplated stuffing back into my mouth before allowing sanity to prevail. "Bailey, what the hell? That looks like something out of Lord of the Rings – and we don't have a dwarf with us. If we stay on this road, we can just go around, can't we?"

"We can't stay on the coast road, Karla – it'll take us hundreds of kilometres and a week longer to get there. Our safest shot is the Macquarie Pass, then a clear run down the Hume Highway."

Terror, keen and sharp, pierced my competent calm. "I don't know if I can make it up something like that," I whispered to Bailey. "My legs are already shaking, I've got blisters on my blisters, and my arse feels like it's been sitting on knives." Hours of continuous exercise had somehow seemed appealing when I'd proposed this trek – a Big Brother style boot camp regime that I'd sweat prettily through and come out the other side two dress sizes down. The reality was that after three hours I felt shivery and exhausted, gutted rather than empowered.

"It'll be fine. If you fall behind, we'll wait for you at the top."

"We have to tell the others."

"They already know. We spoke about it last night after you went to sleep." Bailey's smooth face creased in empathy. "You can do this, Karla. You're the most capable person I know."

"I'm also the least fit person in the group. Even the alcoholic has better cardio than me." I'd been quietly surprised by Simon's stamina on the bike, before recalling that he attended a circuit class run by the same people who operated the AA group he was supposed to meet with far more frequently than he did.

"We've got another seven-ish hours of daylight, so it doesn't matter how long it takes you. I've got a spot picked out for us to camp at tonight at the top, so all we need to do is get there."

"Oh yeah, that's all," I scoffed. I stood and pulled my backpack on, refusing to let Bailey's sympathy land. "As long as I don't get shot or fall off a mountain, I'll be fine."

"Our dearly departed Google estimated it would take about three hours from here to the top of the climb," said Bailey, rising and dusting their hands on their black jeans. "I think we can probably add an extra hour, maybe a bit more."

Four and a half hours of riding up. I can do this. Trying to ape confidence, I encouraged everyone to jump back on the bikes and we powered onward.

Half an hour later, the road began to slope gently upwards. I lowered my gear and stayed positive. This isn't so bad.

Another thirty minutes, and the road incline increased. My fingers clutched at the gears, lowering them all the way down until it felt like I had to rotate the pedals twenty times just to move an inch.

After another hour, everyone else was out of sight, further up the mountain. The angle of the road seemed insane, as if a drunk engineer with a death wish had designed the mountain pass. I will not get off and walk. I will not get off and walk. This was my mantra, and I repeated it with every push. I. Will. Not. Get. Off. And. Walk.

Time ceased to have any meaning; there was only pain and the road. All around me, soaring gum trees filtered the sun and left me feeling isolated, the last woman in the world. There were no cars, no other bikes, I couldn't hear anyone else ahead of me. I was alone. In pain, I wept.

A hairpin turn appeared, and my brain spun in a useless circle. I knew that I should follow the widest, least steep side of the road, but that meant riding further than if I rode up closer to the turn. I picked the shorter path, standing up on the pedals and pushing up the sharp slope.

But my legs were shaky and weak, and my foot slipped on the pedal, sending me crashing forward onto the handlebars. With my weight unbalanced, I fell to the side and the bike fell with me, overturning the trailer.

I landed on my hip, hard, skinning my elbow as I tried to break my fall. I cried out, a tragic sound in the quiet of the bush, my voice dulled by the enormous trees around me.

I wept in a puddle on the ground, tangled with the bike and feeling the bite of the bitumen on my bleeding skin. Along with my sobs, words burst out in scattered, angry phrases. "Useless... Fat! Stupid... Lazy. Ugly. Fat!"

It always came back to me being overweight. If I was skinny, I wouldn't be here. I would have been fit and powerful and able to ride hills effortlessly in short shorts and a cropped tee while flirting shamelessly with Rueben.

Strike that. If I was skinny, I would have been with Dean. I never would have been in Sydney in the first place. Miserable, I pinched the extra flesh around my gut, visualising for the thousandth time, taking a scalpel to my belly and slicing into it, letting the fat ooze out of me like pus from a pimple.

"Hey! Hey, Karla, are you okay?"

Rueben's voice hailed me from up the hill. I wiped my face and gingerly climbed to my feet. "I'm fine. I just fell."

I busied myself flipping the trailer over and righting the bike, trying to keep my face hidden. Rueben braked to a stop beside me and jumped off. "Are you hurt?"

He examined my elbow, and my skin danced where his fingers skimmed. "It's just a graze."

"I can dress it when we stop for the night."

"What are you, a doctor?" I forced a laughed, hurriedly reaching for the handlebars.

He watched me struggle with the bike, then gently guided me to the flatter part of the hairpin turn. "I actually studied medicine for a few years."

"You did? What happened?"

"I decided to follow a different path."

I looked up the path in front of me, wishing there was a different one to follow. "Okay, you can go ahead now. I'll meet you up there. Mischa will need you."

Using my stronger leg, I tried to push off on the pedal, but the incline was still too steep and I fell to the side again, barely catching myself on a trembling leg.

Rueben's hand shot out and steadied my handlebars. "I'm not going anywhere. Mish is safe with the others. Why don't we walk for a while?"

"Because that will take ten times longer, and you shouldn't have to wait around for the stupid fat girl." Tears started dripping again, and a searing hunger gnawed in my belly. I would have eaten a live kangaroo if it had jumped close enough in that moment. The hatefulness of being both fat and hungry wasn't fair; wanting to change one and being unable to control the other.

His voice was soft. "You're not stupid, Karla. But you're tired and hurting and probably in shock - Bailey told me what you guys saw back there. I'm not leaving you alone here. I'll walk up with you."

It didn't escape my knowledge that he hadn't denied that I was fat, and the shame burned inside my heart, more painful than my torn skin.

It took us hours. I didn't know how many, but it was way more than Google could have anticipated. My breath raked like fire over the back of my parched throat, so I didn't try speaking to Rueben as we made our way around the second hairpin turn and up the final slope. Even my brain fell silent, my whole being consumed with simply putting one foot in front of the other, leaning heavily on the handlebars.

But Rueben was there for every step, pacing me, waves of silent support radiating in my direction. He didn't pretend he was rescuing me or being heroic; he simply walked beside me and it was enough.

After about twenty or so years, the road finally flattened out. A sign indicated a lookout parking bay ahead, and we saw a campfire burning in the dusky light. "We made it," I whispered.

"We did." Rueben paused for a second. "Karla, I just wanted to say... You keep calling yourself fat..."

"Because I am," I said simply. We hadn't stopped moving, but we'd slowed down, the finish line in sight.