ok..

someone help me understand this

some scientists state some light the detect is from just after the bigbang, and has taken around 13 billion light years to reach us

i understand that, but surely that light must have hit something inbetween?

Why would it have to? There’s a whole lot of empty space out there. We can see stars and galaxies that are pretty far away, and if we can see them it means there’s nothing blocking the view.

Well, if circa 300,000 years is 'just after the big bang', then yes. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the 'light' that exists in the universe since it was not opaque anymore. Just lookup Olbers' Paradox: your question is exactly the opposite of it, i.e. seen from the source of light, instead of the observer.