Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2023 - January 2024 i Great Walks

US bushwalkers must be well ahead of our time. Apparently the term 'silent walking' is TikTok's buzziest health trend. (TikTok: noun; a popular social media app that allows users to create, watch, and share 15-second videos shot on mobile devices or webcams.) The term 'silent walking' was first coined by TikTok mega-influencer Mady Maio (her video about it has amassed millions of views) and it's as simple as it sounds: having a daily stroll without the aid of any type of audio entertainment, which means no music, podcast, or audiobook. Simply walk in silence, without stimulation, distraction-free. Now that sounds like a normal bushwalk for you and me (unless you’re a chatty bunch) but for many people especially the young (I'm looking at you, my darling daughter Matilda) it's a…

“WALKERS WILL BE ABLE TO ENJOY STAYING OVERNIGHT AT ONE OF THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGES ALONG THE TRACK” NEW year, new walks (well, some new, some oldies but a goodies). We’ve compiled a bunch of walks, both here and overseas, both independent and guided, to put on your radar for 2024. Hume and Hovell Track, Yass - Albury NSW - 426km If you’re after a challenge for 2024, this 426km trail is it! This historic route follows the explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, on a track steeped in Australian colonial and indigenous history. Stretching across southeastern NSW from Yass to Albury, the trail runs along the Murrumbidgee and Tumut rivers and finishes at the Murray, crossing over 100 footbridges, on single track, fire trails and quiet backcountry roads. It can…

I don’t know exactly how it came into my possession, but I do remember finding the US quarter in my foreign currency drawer and noticing for the first time the design stamped on its reverse face. The image was of legendary 19th century environmentalist and outdoorsman John Muir, posing manfully before Half Dome while a California condor wheeled overhead. I’d long wanted to add the John Muir Trail (JMT) to my hike collection, and this small coin seemed like a billboard from fate telling me to wait no longer. The time was now - 2023 would be my JMT year! It was also, coincidentally, the year with the highest snowfall ever in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Best foot forward “You won’t be alone for long,” they said. “You’ll soon become…

PRESENTED BY AMANDA (54) “Katrina and I met in 1996 with our first babies at the Baby Clinic. In 2020 and still great friends we started a ‘phone walk ’n talk’ each weekend, with increasing distances and time. In October 2021 a girls weekend at Coolangatta with a day hike to Currumbin and back was the start of it! How quickly a to-do list can grow! Our first big decision was Tassie’s Three Capes Trek. Excitedly preparing we bought boots and packs, hiked at Binna Burra in Lamington NP, local bushlands, as well as Mt Gravatt Mountain and Mount Cotton (pack training!). The Three Capes Trek (self-guided TasParks) was EPIC and we loved it. We were pushed to our limits walking with packs and being out of our comfort zone,…

FOR over 30 years I have been known as “Captain Contingency” by my best man and walking companion, Mark. That moniker came about when we were cross-country ski touring one year and one of our party's pack straps came adrift. Now most experienced walkers carry a small sewing kit; in the army we called them a “housewife”. I don't know whether they have changed the nomenclature, what with all the political correctness that has pervaded the services now, but I digress. In addition to a regular small sewing kit, I carried an awl and a small length of waxed linen thread – almost twine. I set to and repaired the pack very well with a small leather off-cut in my “possibles bag” – Google it – and it served the…

GREAT WILDERNESS WALKS CENTRAL TASMANIA HEAD to the highlands of Tasmania to breathe in the freshest alpine air in the world, to find wombats hiding in the button grass moorlands, eagles soaring overhead, and masses of bouncing wallabies. Wander around thousands of deep lakes, swim if you’re brave, and explore the Central Plateau of Tasmania – the isolated beating heart of the island and a place of many unforgettable walking adventures. The vast area that makes up the Central Highlands, Great Western Tiers and remote Central Plateau Conservation Area attracts a tiny fraction of the tourists to the island yet is a walker's paradise. Also known as “The Land of a Thousand Lakes”, the region is home to Australia’s largest freshwater lake, The Great Lake, as well as the raw…

Central Italy’s best-known walk, the Via degli Dei (en.viadeglidei.it), has been a victim of its own popularity: about 300 people a day now tackle the 130km Path of the Gods between Bologna and Florence along the Apennines. But the Sentiero dei Ducati (Ducati Trail), farther north-west, promises silence, empty paths and glorious woodlands. Starting in leafy Reggio Emilia (2.5hr from Rome by train), the less-visited neighbour of Parma and Modena, the trail runs for 200km to Sarzana, near the Ligurian coast. The walk is divided up into 12 stages so you can just do day walks or walk the whole thing but be warned there are lots of ups and downs - 7,400m of ascent and almost the same of descent. Starting at 50m above sea level at Reggio Emilia,…

THE sun has risen, but the clouds have basted its yolk with an egg-white cataract. But our eagerness to hit the trail can’t be dulled. At Deep Creek Homestead (a 90min drive from Adelaide), Southern Ocean Walk owners, Barry and Jane Duykers, arm our tribe of eight with Osprey backpacks, walking poles, flasks, lunch boxes and water. It’s a personable, family-run operation. The couple have lived in the region for 30 years. They even got married in Deep Creek National Park. Driver, Fraser, drops us off at the start point of Australia’s epic 1200km Heysen Trail. We’ll be hiking a 52km section between Cape Jervis and Kings Beach near Victor Harbor. Our 4-day, class 5, guided linear adventure will share South Australia’s Wild South Coast Way. Fitter but fatter On…

GUIDED GETAWAYSTAS WALKING CO. What's your earliest bushwalking memory? I was lucky enough to grew up in Tasmania with prehistoric rainforests and majestic dolerite mountains as my home. My earliest bushwalking memory would have to be hiking to Lee’s Paddock (adjacent to The Overland Track, Cradle Mountain) on a cold overcast day with my mum and some family friends. It was probably late autumn and I remember just how wonderful everything looked wrapped in frost. What got you into the walking tour business? I drew early inspiration from the fieldwork of my parents. Later I embarked on extensive overseas travel which fuelled my passion for places of cultural and natural significance. I studied Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania before qualifying as a horticulturalist and completing my studies in…

BIBBULMUN TRACK, WA THE history of a long-distance walking trail in WA goes back to the mid-1970s, when the Bibbulmun Track was originally created. Over the years the trail has been continuously upgraded to its present level and 25 years ago Cheryl Edwards, the then Minister for Environment for WA, opened the 1000km “New” Bibbulmun Track, on September 13th 1998. To commemorate the event, a number of intrepid walkers set out on an inaugural end-to-end walk from Albany to Kalamunda. These walkers were joined by many others along the way who walked sections of the Track with them, and in 2008 a second walk took place to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the Track. Both walks were a great success and generated wide community awareness of the existence of recreational…

HAVE you ever been on a hike where you’ve been really scared? I have. A few years ago, my bestie, Kaz and I set off on a five day hike on the Great Ocean Walk. We started at the Cape Otway Lighthouse and enjoyed a few perfect days of hiking through some of the most spectacular landscapes in the country. At the end of day four, we trekked, exhausted, into the ominously named ‘Devil’s Kitchen’ campsite and set up our tiny two-person tent. Numerous signs warned there was an absolute fire ban. Shortly after we had set up, a group of four people arrived. What was unusual, and a bit scary, was that they were all wearing balaclavas, which they didn’t remove. Kaz and I watched on warily as they…

“GO, go, go!” It was the three words we were waiting for. As soon as the person in front of me jumped in the choppy waters of Ningaloo Reef from the boat, I followed, quickly swimming in line with the others. Through my facemask I began scouring the ocean looking for the great fish I had come all this way to swim with. “Over there!” That voice again. I followed the guide’s direction and suddenly out of the blue, maybe four metres from me and only a metre below the water’s surface the massive whale shark silently glided past. “You have to swim if you want to keep up with it.” Another instruction we had been given during an earlier briefing on the boat. Whale sharks don’t stop so you…

GREAT SCANDINAVIAN WALKSKUNGSLEDEN TRAIL, SWEDEN A young reindeer was cropping the tundra, barely 20 metres from me – fur the colour of earth and birch bark. Its antlers, still coated with velvet, stirred cold mountain air saturated with low cloud. I crouched between rocks splashed with vibrant green and yellow lichens, and held my breath. Over 130km into my hike, I had learned how flighty reindeer could be. The tiniest sound could set them running: a boot softly padding over moss in a still forest; a golden eagle’s shrill cry echoing in a mountain pass. Silent now, I could hear the animal sniffing for food, tearing out and chewing dwarf birch. Then it stopped and looked straight at me. Still as a stone. Behind the reindeer, the cloud parted for…

HOW TO... WHEN you were a kid you might have had a copy of the Scouts handbook that showed you how to tie knots, repair tents and fight off killer spiders. Well, here at Great Walks we thought we might do something similar and present a mammoth How To guide which pretty much covers everything from how to choose the right camp stove to how to spot symptoms of hypothermia. If you want to know how to fight killer spiders you’ll still have to refer to your old Scouts manual! How to... be prepared for bushfire season Unfortunately, it looks like bushfire season is already here and for bushwalkers that means extra vigilance when planning where and when you are going to go for a walk and to be aware…

CHEVELLE propped herself against a farm fence just outside of Montbonnet on the first day of her pilgrimage. Exhausted from the 15km hike, she was catching her breath before tackling the last few kilometres on the Chemin de Saint-Jaques – better known as the Le Puy Camino. At 67, it was the French grandmother’s first multi-day walk and her first day of retirement. A big decision to walk from Le Puy-en-Velay to Saint Jean Pied de Port – a total of 750km. Her husband of 45 years passed away 18 months earlier and she was fulfilling his dream. She planned on walking about 15km a day, inserting rest days when needed, all the way collecting her thoughts and penning a book about her husband’s life for a family keepsake. Caminos…