I still call myself a bushwalker or hiker, but it seems that is no longer true. For a number of years, centered around my 60th birthday, I was walk-fit, with calloused feet and endurance to hike all day. Today I did a club walk of 13 kilometers with around 400 meters of ascent, and struggled all the way. Now I’m exhausted. What happened? Easy answer: I ceased regular hiking because…
These boots have seen so much action: long hikes, brutally tough remote hikes, country base camps, day walks… But I stopped walking last year, needing time to write and live. Walking takes time, the more complex the walk, the more time it sucks out of you. But a challenge beckons. In eight weeks time, we hike the Cape to Cape trail near Margaret River in Western Australia. The seven days…
For a number of years, walking loomed large for me. I went on bushwalks with a bushwalking club, which meant single-day walks ranging from 10 kms to 20 kms or further, or “base camps” where we, and others, traveled somewhere to do a series of day walks. I hiked, by which I meant I carried a larger pack with tent, stovetop, and food for days in wilderness (sometimes benign wilderness…
Last year I progressively cut back on my hiking/bushwalking (whatever name is preferred). This year I’ve barely hiked at all. I still walk instead of driving, but my journeys afoot are short, a couple of kilometers at most. Consequently, my feet have lost their callouses, their handy toughness. My legs are fit for running and half-hour walks, but are no longer conditioned for fifteen or…
Five years ago, I hiked often and hiked hard. Now, for a variety of reasons, all I let myself undertake is regular day walks and occasional, none-too-tough pack carry hikes. In 2020, the hiking lynchpin was the five-day Jatbula Trail from Katharine, apparently gorgeous and not too onerous. Well, Covid-19 put paid to that, and now a 2021 reprise attempt has also been scuppered by Melbourne’s…
The Jatbula Trail from Katherine is not, on the face of it, scary. 62 kilometers over five days, no huge ascents, quality pre-booked campsites. At the end of June, when Pam and I help make up a dozen club hikers doing the trail, the dry season will be benign enough to allow a light pack without rain gear or extreme cold gear. Still, still, still … terror mounts in one’s brain. A few years…
It wasn’t so long ago that a Big Year of Tough Hikes seemed likely for one of the years between age 65 and age 70. Certainly, that’s what my 60-year-old self had envisaged. But now at age 65, the notion, once attractive, of tackling the Tour du Mont Blanc, traversing Sicily’s central spine, and mastering the Western Arthurs in Tasmania, all in the one year, has vanished. I know…