The moment I knew: on the long night walk, he had barely enough food for himself – but shared half with me | Australian lifestyle

It was the early 90s and I was a 22-year-old fringe dweller living under a tarp at a campground at the base of Mount Arapiles – a rock-climbing hub in western Victoria – alongside a tribe of fellow climbers. On weekends we’d often travel down to the coast to meet up with other young climbers and camp by the beach.

One memorable weekend, Jon turned up. I’d met him briefly the summer before at Mount Arapiles and felt an instant attraction to this boisterous and charismatic man.

At sundown, we all set off from the camp to spend the night wandering the sand dunes under the influence of the full moon (and who knows what else). Jon and I soon fell into lockstep, stopping when he spotted a bleached cow leg bone protruding from the dunes. We sat and marvelled at how it would make a great tool for fighting off wild dogs or, filed down on a stone, a spear. Both of us, it seemed, had been collectors of animal bones since childhood.

I had forgotten to pack food and mentioned I was ravenous. Jon fished around in his backpack and pulled out a muesli bar and an orange. He had brought just enough food for himself but broke what he had in half and shared it with me. This simple act of generosity left me besotted.

By dawn everyone was back at camp in sleeping bags around the fire, exhausted. Except Jon. He was cutting laps around the perimeter of camp, cradling the leg bone, his eyes glittering. I was transfixed by his wild animal physicality – and graceful, fluid body.

When the weekend was over we returned to our respective lives – me to my tarp at Mount Arapiles and Jon to his little house in a nearby town, where he worked as a rock-climbing guide. Jon was married and I was seeing someone at the time so I never considered us being together. But something in my world had changed. I realised what I wanted most in a man was respect for women and the Earth – someone who would give me space to grow and share my love of the more-than-human world.

In the 11 years that followed, I moved away from Mount Arapiles and the rock-climbing community. I worked as a nanny and built my own passive-solar house and permaculture garden. I tried to forget about Jon.

Then, one day out of the blue, I got a call from Jon to say, “Happy birthday, and by the way did you know I’m a single man?” All those years, he had also been thinking of me. We were both growing vegetables, harvesting solar energy, cutting wood to cook with, and raising chickens for meat and eggs. It made sense to do it together, in one place. Within a week, we were engaged.

We began creating a business together in the Grampians, offering wilderness expeditions and hosting stays for people. Our love for the land and minimising our impact on the planet held us together through enormous life challenges – including my recurring bouts of breast cancer and recoveries. In 2016, we finished a documentary about our off-grid lifestyle called Suzy and the Simple Man.

Last winter, I went on to test my survival skills in the wilds of the South Island of New Zealand as a participant on the reality TV show Alone Australia. I lasted 63 days, foraging, hunting, fishing and filming my experience. Every day I felt Jon’s presence with me. I wanted to win so that we could use the AU$250,000 prize to invest in more water security and future-proof the land we have lived on for 22 years. I placed second by just 24 hours. I was so close but, after such a long and arduous time apart from Jon, there was relief in coming home to my person.

Jon’s generosity still feels like the glue that holds our life together. We are also held by the land which has become our lifeblood, the bones of who we are.