I was overwhelmed and exhausted, so I spent a day picking mushrooms in the countryside

I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Between health problems, money troubles, a sick father, a busy course load and losing a colleague to cancer, life recently has just felt like … a lot.

I think it was obvious to everybody except for me that I needed a break.

So, last week, the lady I'm dating all but threw me into the car and drove me into the country — near Redesdale in central Victoria, less than 90 minutes' drive from the city.

Driving through a pine forest, Holly turned off the main road. She pulled over at an unremarkable spot on the old gravel trail.

"I'm sure that this is where my friend took me mushrooming last autumn," she said.

Cooler, wetter weather is perfect for mushrooms to grow. And, in many parts of Australia, autumn is peak mushroom foraging season.

Stepping into the forest

It had been raining and the ground was squelchy and slippery, but the air was fresh and cool. The cold felt somehow refreshing, rather than oppressive and dour like it would in the city.

Upon stepping into the forest, I spotted a small red mushroom with white spots. I knelt beside it and studied it.

I was so charmed by this exquisite little mushroom that it took Holly's prompting for me to notice that we were surrounded by them.

We walked further into the forest. Holly disappeared behind a log and appeared moments later, jubilantly brandishing her prize: our first saffron milk cap. These are a crunchy, edible type of mushroom, also known as pine mushrooms.

Over the next hour or so we gently picked our way through the forest.

I felt a stab of joy every time I spied a flat, leathery milk cap peeking through the carpet of pine needles.

I learned to confidently identify them and we gathered a solid haul in a paper shopping bag we'd found in the car.

She was much better at spotting the mushrooms. I was too delighted by the spotty fairy mushrooms, and kept spending several minutes staring at a particularly perfect one. I marvelled at how it looked like the default, prototypical image of a mushroom in my mind, but it had taken me 35 years to see one in the flesh.

I heard the cranky chirping of a family of tiny thornbills, and I followed them as they flitted through the trees.

I brushed a couple of millipedes off the mushroom and slid my hand underneath to cups its stem between my fingers. I pulled gently until I felt the release as it came free from the earth, like the satisfying feeling of a well-worn milk tooth finally relinquishing its hold on the gum.

I called to Holly. We found many more beautiful mushrooms by that log and carefully stowed them in our shopping bag.

Contentment from the forest floor

It was slow, gratifying work.

Tending my little veggie patch and walking by Merri Creek in Melbourne's north provide reasonable facsimiles of some sort of connection to nature for a city dweller, but this was completely different.

There was something about using my hands to gather food provided freely by the forest that made me feel like an organism nestled inside an ecosystem.

I smiled at Holly and saw my contentment reflected in her face.

We filled our bag and reluctantly headed back to the city.

Back to reality with 68 mushrooms in tow

Immediately upon arriving home I cleaned my bathroom in anticipation of a house guest arriving later than night, quickly smashed out some coding work for uni and dashed off to my book club meet up.

After hours immersed in the forest, I was well and truly back to reality.

I've experimented with a few recipes since our afternoon in the forest: I've made mushroom gnocchi; I've had mushrooms sauteed with garlic and parsley on fresh sourdough toast; I've cooked mushroom meals for my friends, with warnings about the possibility of crunching on grit every so often — those delicate little gills are hard to clean!

I ate the final slice of mushroom pie for dinner last night.

I probably won't have time to return to the forest before the mushrooms are finished for the year.

But when that feeling of being immersed in the forest — removed from life's pressures, even for an hour or two — starts slipping away, I glance at my big jar of pickled saffron milk caps.

Zoë Amanda Wilson is a Melbourne-based actor and stunt performer currently completing her honours year in psychology.