Ah, I remember this quite clearly. Had been playing for a month or so - never leveled up much past 20ish. I was leveling my professions as a tailor/enchanter. I read that an Azure silk cloak was the PERFECT item to disenchant. So I trekked as a human priest - in his 20s - through Desolace and Feralas to get the NE post in between Feralas and Thousand Needles. And this is years before you could have a mount at 20. I had heard of the Barrens list vaugely, but didn't know it was actually that convenient to use, and since I was deathly afraid of PvP flagging for some reason, I took the long way around through level 30 and 40 territory that I had never been in before.
Oddly enough, I had fewer deaths than should be expected from that kind of run through Feralas. Got my pattern though!