by Nicola Shearer
Shortlisted for the 2025 PureTravel Writing Competition Stories For Survival
The dank morning air prickled my skin as I left my house, weighed down under an oversized shoulder bag, with my wellies stuffed clumsily into a tattered plastic bag. I didn’t know it yet, but I was embarking on a volunteer trip that was going to change my life.
The crackle of the ship’s radio roused me from an uneasy sleep. It was inky black outside, and with eyes still half-shut, I went below to the car deck and boarded the minibus. Our destination was La Brenne Nature Park in central France, a watery wonderland and a haven for wetland species and songbirds.
Years of working in human resources had ground me down and, desperate to escape the endless drudge of corporate life, I had signed up for a conservation working holiday with a group of strangers.
Old lime-rendered houses with dilapidated wooden shuttered windows lined the square. We bundled out of the minibus and emptied its contents into our gîte, a converted mill resplendent with huge beams, mullioned windows, and a youth hostel vibe. Clutching my shiny new binoculars, I wasted no time getting out in nature. Anticipation gripped me.
The boardwalk disappeared into the morning mist across the pond. Croaking filled the sepia-hued air, and as we quietly started along the boardwalk, the frogs fell silent. Hanging back until the final footsteps receded, I lay down flat on the damp wood to get a closer look. Frogs, camouflaged in khaki, were thick in the water and on the lily pads. One by one, they started croaking again, oblivious to my curiosity. The sound built to a crescendo, and then the tramping of footsteps vibrated along the boards, once more silencing the frog chorus.
Days spent sawing and lopping blackthorn left me with deep scratches, an aching body, and a sense of achievement that I had never experienced before. I zoned out in my own world: the blades of my brush cutter slicing through unwanted scrub, the smell of petrol burning my nostrils, the incessant drone drowning everything else out, the vibration of the machine in my hands numbing my fingers. I had never felt happier or more alive.
The camaraderie we had developed in our small group kept us laughing every evening, on our chaotic minibus adventures, and during the painfully early starts. The exhaustion I felt at the end of every day was matched only by the euphoria I felt discovering species of birds, dragonflies, butterflies, and moths I had never seen or heard of.
We stood at the side of the road one evening, the minibus abandoned to one side, our hands held up to our eyes as we all peered in the same direction. Slowly, slowly, in the small round windows of my binoculars appeared a series of long, wavy black lines accompanied by a distant trumpeting sound. Gradually, these sky scribbles were above us. Hundreds of common cranes had come to roost on La Mer Rouge. Skinny legs dangling, their huge flappy wings brought them gently down to land on the lake right in front of us.
It wasn’t all work and wildlife, though. We practised our mediocre French with our hosts and became the best customers at the village pub. On days off, we explored the local towns and villages, wandered through tiny museums, and visited goat cheese farms. The lingering, pungent smell of goats seared itself into my olfactory memory.
Eventually it was time to leave the goats and blackthorn behind and face the real world again. As my train rumbled into London, the rush of city noise, even at midnight, was deafening. I suddenly felt very out of place. I had never experienced a trip like this before. The physicality of it, the achievement I felt, and the wonder at the natural world had me in a bit of a spin.
I knew before this trip that I couldn’t carry on in my existing career. I applied to university to study an environmental course, and my weekends were now spent at a local Wildlife Trust reserve, helping the rangers with conservation efforts.
Milestones loomed distant on the horizon, but one by one I reached them, terrified and excited in equal measure, and I made it through. Handing in my notice and returning to full-time education in my mid-30s meant that I lost my financial independence. Friends said I was brave. I felt irresponsible. I was scared that I was acting on a whim, and sometimes I still think that’s all it was. But it was a whimsical idea that I have never regretted. Those three years at university were tough as I battled through the alien world of scientific lectures, culminating in the submission of a dissertation about butterflies, the species I had laboured so arduously in France to protect and climate change.
More than a decade later, I have forged a career between old and new. In my new job I can get away from my desk to go to a riverbank or the coast. My busy mind is quietened when I stand still on a saltmarsh. I watch tiny white crabs scuttling across the mud and terns swooping above, ears filled with the call of oystercatchers and curlews, as the salty estuary air dishevels my hair. My new life is a web of wilderness and spreadsheets changed permanently by one impulsive act of booking an unusual holiday.
Photo by Bartochette on Unsplash
