BRENNA Tarrant was sitting at camp on the side of a Nepalese mountain drinking tea when she found out she had made the All-Australian team.

The idea of a helicopter ride to get her back to Australia to claim the award was thrown her way, but it wasn't to be, and instead the Swans' intercepting defender basked in the achievement a world away.

Following a tough season in which the Swans went from reaching finals in 2023 to just three wins in 2024, Tarrant jumped on a plane at season's end to challenge herself physically and get away from it all mentally.

But a spanner was thrown in the works when she discovered she had been named in the 42-person All-Australian squad.

"I was sitting on the plane, and I hadn't bought any data packs. I was going over there to essentially disappear. I wasn't going to buy any data, I wasn't going to talk to my parents, I wasn't going to talk to anyone for two-and-a-half weeks," Tarrant told AFL.com.au.

"I was able to get a message because my telephone company does do international roaming. So it would let me get messages, but I couldn't send them back. I'm like 'No, this is a joke, this is a joke'.

"I get into the terminal, I managed to get some wi-fi, I called my agent. I was like 'Bro, what's going on?' and he's like 'What do you mean?'."

This is Brenna Tarrant in a nutshell. Exuberant, curious and just a little chaotic.

She followed that call with one to her parents, crying happy tears while walking through Hong Kong airport trying to find customs and reach her connecting flight to Nepal.

Soon enough, she was in the air, Kathmandu-bound and with adventure on the horizon, but there was enough happening back home that Tarrant did invest in a data pack for her phone. Just in case.

"I'm just walking along these single trails and in these communities, things get brought up by cattle, gas cans on the back of these cattle and stuff like that … so that's what I was walking alongside, (and) a lot of other people carrying stuff on their backs and everything like that. It was very eye-opening, and that's entirely what I planned on," Tarrant said.

"I was probably about halfway to base camp when I got the call from my agent saying I was All-Australian. Yeah, I was in tears again."

Surrounded by pack mules, drinking tea, and sitting among some of the biggest mountains in the world, Tarrant found out she had earned one of the biggest individual awards in the AFLW.

"Those two sides of me, that I just adore, coming together as one," Tarrant said.

"And I was like 'Wow, this is so sick, this is amazing'. Then I got a call from Amanda [Turner], our acting GM saying, 'Can you come back?'"

In reality, getting back to Australia wasn't that simple. Base camp was 60km from the nearest road, and given the weather conditions, a helicopter wasn't on the cards. Even if she could make it back to Kathmandu, the flights back to Sydney, via Hong Kong, were an expense Tarrant couldn't quite afford.

"So I was like, this tea tastes pretty good," Tarrant laughed.

The decision to stay ended up being the best thing for Tarrant, who has always found herself content with nature. The hike itself was to a base camp on a mountain called Annapurna, one of the 'eight-thousanders' – 14 mountains with summits 8000 metres above sea level.

Tarrant wasn't going to summit the peak, but the trip was designed to reach a base camp roughly 4000 metres above sea level. It was a challenge the 23-year-old was interested in due to her curiosity around altitude, and its impact on the human body.

"I got into this fascination of watching all these documentaries about the Himalayas and the 14 eight-thousanders around the world and just what your body does when you go to high altitude, it's so fascinating," Tarrant said.

"And I was watching and even just the dangers and how different everything is here. You don't realise how flat Australia is, you do over there and everything's up a freaking hill."

The hike itself began following a nine-hour bus trip on bumpy unsealed roads from Kathmandu to the starting point.

"You're starting at about 500m, and first day (hiking) straight up 2000m. So that's like (Mount) Kosciuszko," Tarrant explained.

"We got up to about there the first night, and it was all about altitude adjustment the next few days … That was beautiful, too. Like, we were just sitting there, I'm just sipping on tea surrounded by these monster mountains."

The hike in total was around 100km, each day knocking over 10km, while the clouds rolled through the gullies.

Having grown up in the Blue Mountains, Tarrant's love for nature and exploring blossomed at an early age, always excited to duck away into the trees after school had finished.

"It gave me so many opportunities to just disappear. I'd finish school and I'd go and play up the road with the (neighbourhood) kids. We'd disappear into the bush, we'd be having races to climb a certain tree in a certain amount of time," Tarrant said.

"That was my childhood, it was the best … I can't have been more lucky with the upbringing I had in the place I had."

Annapurna was just the adult version of her childhood running around in the bush. A more dangerous, more carefully planned version. But mentally, it offered something similar.

"I was really soul searching that holiday," Tarrant said.

"I'd had a pretty big season, not in terms of any accolades, just it was a big season and I'd actually disappeared off to Europe that same year because I just got burnt out and I realised I just wanted to travel, and I wanted to see the world.

"I felt almost a little bit claustrophobic sitting in our big country in Australia and I needed to get off our island."

While Tarrant is dedicated to her footy, with the ultimate goal of winning a flag with the club she grew up supporting, any chance she gets to disappear will be a chance taken.

Mount Kilimanjaro is on the list of future hikes, so are the Dolomites.

"Basically, anything that involves mountains, big rocks, mountaineering," Tarrant said.

"I love it."