Her partner, Cam Pond, and children, Ben (14) and Sidney (11), have flown from New Zealand to support her.
Pond stays up at night checking her GPS.
At the Katoomba aquatic centre aid station, Ben lovingly puts drops in his mother's eyes, and Sidney wipes her face with baby wipes.
Ben prepares baked potatoes and chicken soup for her at different stations.
Walker looks like Rocky Balboa between rounds — weary, covered in sweat and dirt, but with fight left.
Guardian Australia joins her for the next 24 kilometers, from the aquatic centre to the Queen Victoria hospital aid station.
Just after the 120-kilometer mark, she descends 1,000 steps into the Grand Canyon track. Water trickles down the walls, ferns pop up from pools.
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She calls it "flatlining" — a break from life's constant beeping, where only the next hill or aid station matters.
Wildflowers and waterfalls guide her through the landscape. As the last light fades, she crawls up stairs into the mountain mist.
Doubt creeps in. "I'm just having a bit of a pity party in my head," she says.
Her feet are so swollen that shoelaces cut into her skin. "My feet look like sausages."
She prefers climbs over descents to protect her knees. At times, the pain becomes so intense that her eyes cannot cope with any more stimulation.
She lies down on the trail, closes her eyes, and finds enough strength to move forward for another five or ten minutes.
