Why this woman is travelling the Aussie outback solo

If Eat, Pray, Love was based in Australia, Edwina Roberts would take on the main role.

Edwina – or Eddy as she’s known – is on the trip of a lifetime through the diverse and captivating landscapes of outback Australia. She has taken time out from her job and life in the big smoke to travel around country Australia - and remarkably is doing so without spending a cent!

The 32-year-old’s story is captivating the nation, as for many of us the idea of travelling alone through the dusty outback is daunting…or plain terrifying!

But as Eddy reveals Charles Wooley in this week’s 60 Minutes, it’s just the escape she needed. This is a girl who needed to get lost in the middle of nowhere in order to find herself.

“I’ve had depression several times and literally three weeks before I left on this journey, I was hospitalised,” she tells Wooley. 

“I call it my mental breakdown. I’d pushed myself to a point, you know, always about the money, always about working harder, keeping up with the Jones’s. I had just burnt out. I didn’t even know who I was.”

Eddy is bartering her services as a professional photographer in exchange for food, diesel and accommodation. All while sharing her incredible story across the nation.