By Lorraine Wilson

IT MIGHT not have been the most fitting backdrop to what proved to be a life-changing moment but it was memorable. On the platform at Banja Luka station, in Bosnia, an animated and inebriated local swigged what looked like screen wash from a plastic container and serenaded passengers with something that sounded like traditional song – as performed by a cat in extreme distress.

This was the only entertainment, or perhaps distraction is a better description, during a delay in what should have been a nine-hour journey between Zagreb and Sarajevo. There was no way of knowing how long it would last as the guards were clueless, concentrating on shrugging and smoking. By this time I had been travelling for more than two months and knew that, in this part of Europe, no amount of polite enquiry would yield answers.

As the hours passed with no idea why we were still at the platform, the desire to know what was happening and why slipped away. The anxiety that might have accompanied a scenario like this previously had gone. I had finally learned to accept what I couldn’t change and learned to live in the moment.

Passengers left the train and stretched out on the platform, being careful not to stray too far in case the train rumbled off and they were left behind. It had happened at a previous lengthy delay – two backpackers chasing a train from the Bulgarian border stop after disembarking for a smoke.

I joined those who decided to pass the time on the platform at Banja Luka. At least it gave some prospect of air, unlike the claustrophobic carriages, and a quick peek from the station doors allowed me to see at least a single street of Bosnia’s second-largest city.

In the end the delay was five and a half hours – a fire on the line ahead had meant that the heat-buckled tracks needed to be replaced. Knowing that earlier wouldn’t have made the wait any easier.

Running away from home had taken me much further than I anticipated. While that idea of total escape is generally the preserve of the disenchanted teenager, over the three months that made up summer 2015, my home was a small backpack and wherever an Interrail pass took me. In the end that resulted in 57 destinations across 21 countries. The distance of approximately 11,500 miles was covered primarily by train, with a few ferries to cover the watery bits and one shoogly coach through the Bosnian mountains.

In the beginning there was no book. No Facing Forwards. That was a reaction to comments from friends who seemed to think that heading off alone at the age of 48 with the smallest backpack possible and no real plan was, in their words, brave.

For me it was necessary. Well, the idea of heading off to think was. The idea of time sitting still on a beach never appealed and besides, I wanted to challenge myself to find out if I was as independent as I thought.

The five years or so leading up to the day when I stood at St Pancras, preparing to board the Eurostar, were difficult. Any one of the problems faced would have been difficult enough but the ingredients of financial meltdown, the end of a long-term relationship that I presumed was forever, the loss of two beloved dogs, a major depressive episode, and a total hysterectomy combined in an almighty trifle of turmoil.

I wasn’t thinking straight, I was making terrible decisions on a regular basis, and giving myself no opportunity to straighten my head out before deciding where life would take me next.

The thought of train travel was appealing. There would be long hours of trundling through the European countryside, but knowing that a new destination was at the end of every journey.

Trying to avoid the major European capitals wherever possible, there was a desire to see the smaller cities and get off the heavily trodden tourist routes.

At times that meant travelling at a snail’s pace (on a journey in Romania a man on a bicycle overtook the train) in cramped carriages with no air conditioning while temperatures in the high 30s raged outside.

That didn’t mean avoiding destinations that had always been on the must-see list, however. The seven-hour journey from Oslo to Bergen climbed into the mountains and provided a Christmas card landscape with deep crisp snow only disturbed by mountain huts painted in the traditional Norwegian dark red.

The odyssey had begun in Brussels following my first Eurostar experience. Even on the first leg from St Pancras, the enormity of what I had taken on became clear, but that was exhilarating rather than frightening. Living in the moment was the goal but there was always the prospect of where to go next, how to get there, and where I would sleep the next night.

The personal challenge included pushing some boundaries. It might not seem much to those who headed off after university to travel, but at 48 I had my first hostel dormitory experience. I didn’t want to stay there but realised that part of the experience had to be finding my own limits of what I was able to withstand for the sake of saving a few Euros.

Sleeping (or trying to sleep) overnight in the main carriages of Eastern European night trains rather than the sleeper section was a way to stay in contact with fellow travellers. In reality, the three months became a blizzard of fresh challenges, new experiences, and perpetual motion. Until the moment of taking a seat and watching the world go by, usually to the soundtrack of a language that I had absolutely no understanding of, every destination had something to offer – good or disappointing.

Many of the challenges came from my own stupidity, however. The prospect of coming home from Romania was all-too-real when my feet were covered in blisters. Trying to find podiatry accessories while hobbling along the main street of Sighisoara in searing heat isn’t easily forgotten.

Neither is getting so lost after wandering aimlessly in Budapest that I ended up on an industrial estate at 10.30pm with no mobile data to access maps and no idea how to get back to the station, where the train was departing at 11.30pm.

As a female solo traveller, there were relatively few occasions where I felt vulnerable due to my gender. When people say that women in their 40s are invisible it’s rubbish, but I was certainly regarded with less interest than the groups of young female backpackers travelling together and wearing the regulation shorts to show off the tanned legs.

Being honest, I tried to blend into the background. There were some interesting conversations on trains and in cafes about the nature of Europe, the independence referendum, and Scotland in general but I rarely sought them out. I wanted the journey to happen around me so I could observe.

Of course I shaped that journey, there was no-one else to do it. The decisions to visit Wroclaw and Katowice in Poland rather than Warsaw and Krakow. To make sure I saw Slovakia’s second-biggest city at Kosice instead of only Bratislava. To realise that after the rigours of Eastern Europe I need to relax with friends for a few days in Italy. That wasn’t abandoning the solo journey, it was making sure that I had the strength and impetus to make it to the end.

That was never a given. It wasn’t loneliness that nearly had me on a flight home, however. The isolation was refreshing. It was moments of physical vulnerability rather than emotional.

Once the dust settled and the backpack was hanging above my desk as an inspiration to get the book written as quickly as possible, the significance of the three months became apparent. I’m calmer, more considered, and definitely more confident in all areas of life.

To achieve that while exploring our big, beautiful, diverse continent was more than I could ever have hoped for.

Lorraine Wilson will be at the book festival, Aye Write!, of which The Herald is media partner, alongside author Sue Reid Sexton on March 15 from 6pm to 7pm in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow. To buy the print version of Facing Forwards online, visit www.facingforwards.com