The first quarter of 2009 ... and a bit

Need I really mention that 2009 has been busy and I have struggled to get around to adding to this blog?


I spent most of the first three months walking - anywhere and everywhere. This turned out to be very good training for the monster Oxfam Trailwalker. Thanks to everyone who donated to the cause - we raised over $2.5k and had a blast walking for 33 hours to complete the 100km as a team of four. Of course that sounds like a lot longer walking than is entirely necessary, but it includes lots of meals (I would never have believed i'd get tired of eating!), podiatry, massages ... and a bit of limping.


Here's a little slideshow of some photos of the last section of the walk.

Recovery from the event was swift and two weeks later it was Easter and we headed up to the Australian Alps (yes there really is such a place - I promise) to meet up with Ella's family - Helen, Jacques, Ingrid and Jana, plus Phil and Jim (Ingrid and Jana's partners). We had a superb long weekend walking in the hills by day, cooking, eating, playing board games in the evenings. I also took my brand new camera along to get to know it ... here are some of the results:

Jacques heads across a raging torrent!



Helen supports Jacques while he catches his breath on the way up a steep hill ... or was it the other way around?



On Easter Sunday some of us did a day-long circuit walk starting out high on the ridge (1700m) deep into a valley, past several old graziers/camping huts and back to the start. It made for a nice trek with lots of variety. Here we are starting out - Mt Feathertop and the razorback walk on the horizon (we did that walk a few years ago when we last visited this area).



This was the pick of the huts for me, right at the bottom of the valley, nestled amongst the trees in a clearing. It would make a nice place to spend a night or two.



Especially when it's kitted out with this stove.



The whole area suffered badly in bushfires in the last few years. The fragile alpine environment is much slower at regenerating than lowland areas. Even still these huge trees (~60m by Jacques reckoning) are showing signs of recovery.



My camera came with a superb zoom lens. All the better for capturing sister-in-laws from great distance! I call this composition 'Ingrid on a hill' ... she must have been half a mile away when I took this.



Everybody went home on the Monday, apart from Helen, Jacques, Ella and I, so we did a couple of shorter walks before heading back on Tuesday. The trip up to Mount Tabletop was brilliant - wonderful views. The spiny leafless trees gave the landscape an eerie look.



But they make a great backdrop for family photos!






Autumn's here now ... as you can see, but we're trying to plan some enjoyable trips for the future to help us through the winter. Hopefully we'll manage to get over to Tassie for a real winter walk - snow and all. Maybe I'll even be able to update this blog before then... I hope you contain your excitement.

The Rafting Trip ... and a charity walk

We got the photos back from the rafting company (thanks Helen and Jacques!)... and here's a slideshow I put together showing the best ones that featured us.

Ella and I are at the front of the boat, Jacques and Helen at the back, and some random people who no doubt have lovely names but I can't remember them, are in the middle.

Enjoy.

Now, if you're done watching that, can I ask you to go nicely to this next website where you can find out all about my next exciting adventure...a great big long walk for charity! <--- click on that bit back there.

Another World Heritage Christmas!

In 2007 we were in the depths of the Tasmanian wilderness walking the South Coast Track, but Christmas 2008 saw us driving a long way north to the World Heritage rain forest National Parks of northern New South Wales.

Getting there took two days of solid driving, camping along the way.






We spent a few days just the two of us in New England National Park. This park is partly situated at about 1500m above sea level on the Tablelands and straddles an impressive escarpment. This means it was fairly cool and often damp or completely immersed in clouds. We didn't think there was much in the way of walking here, but by adding several small walks together we were able to really enjoy it. the views off the escarpment out across the forests were excellent and there were beautiful cascades amongst the rainforest... and even a big black snake!









On Christmas Day we did a nice walk down into Wollomombi Gorge - which was truly spectacular.




There are some impressive waterfalls along the escarpment, as you can see.


On Boxing Day we moved on to the Gibraltar Range National Park to meet up with Helen and Jacques, stopping in Grafton for supplies. There were more campers at this spot, but it wasn't quite overcrowded. Our plan was to walk the World Heritage Trail, a circuit walk that runs through Gibraltar Range and Washpool National Parks. Unfortunately the late afternoon storms typical of these sub-tropical regions made things a bit tricky and after discovering Lake Salewa in the bottom of our tent we changed plans and arranged to do various daywalks either directly from our campsite or driving short distances.

The flora of the area includes Christmas Bells.

We also saw a fair amount of the granite geological formations that make the landscape of the area so rugged.




The geology made for some great swimming and more wonderful waterfalls, too.


And when we weren't busy walking, oohing and aahing at the landscape flora and fauna we were taking photos or laughing deliriously at pretty much anything (including our outfits!)


A nice shot of mother and daughter disappearing into the murky rainforest.


Base Camp:




Evidence of all our hard work:


There was so much to see that the walking was quite relaxed ... there were lots of photos to be taken, like this huge grass tree (the one on the right).


The view from the Needles lookout:


We were having so much fun I forgot to shave:


Several days in we did a walk in Washpool NP that really made the World Heritage status of the area apparent. Absolutely astonishing and abundant plant life in every direction... but not very easy do justice with a camera unfortunately.




To finish the trip we headed to another National Park that didn't have a great deal of walking written up. We camped at Platypus Flats in the depths of Nymboi-Binderay National Park in order to join a whitewater rafting trip down the Nymboida River (a very nice Christmas present from Helen and Jacques - thanks guys!)

It was a beautiful spot by the river and very relaxing and we spent a couple of days there swimming and heading off to another park for a walk (with another brilliant waterfall) before the rafting.





The rafting was immensely good fun, the river wasn't terribly fast-flowing but the rocks made the navigation fun and the secluded rainforest location awesome. We should be getting some photos through from the firm that organised it, so I'll post some up then.

Even though we drove 3,800km and walked over 100km we finished the trip thoroughly relaxed, it felt like much longer than two weeks. Plans are afoot for the next trip ... and it may be an altogether more exotic one.

Lots more photos available HERE (if you can bear them)

And this map should show the area that we were in:


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South Oz (pt 3)

The plan was to walk the last four days of the mammoth Heysen Trail, walking north from Wilpena Pound to Parachilna Gorge. Ella, Jacques and I hit the trail on foot with ample supplies of 'pocket cake', whilst Helen took the 'support vehicle' on enjoyable drives during the days and met us each evening (with more cake) at campsites which were fortunately accessible by 4WD. This gave us walkers the opportunity to walk with relatively light packs, not needing all the camping equipment ... which we replaced with medicinal portions of cake.



The going was really fairly flat, and considerably less tricky than the rock-hopping we got used to in Tassie. We covered decent distances, and ended up doing the four scheduled days in three instead.



The scenery was very interesting - there were lots of ridges surrounding us and scores of dry river beds that we often walked along.





Dumb and dumber!





The temperature was fairly cool, and there were a few rain showers, but generally speaking it was good walking conditions. Not so good for the local Kangaroo / Wallaby populations though, as we saw lots of dead ones along the way.



Despite the arid landscape there were some truly immense trees. Some of the dried up rivers were massive, (I'd love to see some of these rivers in full flow) but it was in these that the largest trees were found. In this photo you can see Jacques at the base of the tree showing how big it is.


Some of the great geology on offer in the Flinder's Ranges.


It was a great walk, and we didn't even feel that tired after three days walking ... thanks in no small part to Helen for driving and meeting us at the end of each day, and the cake she'd provided. And here she is, trying to keep warm as we finished the walk!


All good fun and the holiday was only just beginning. We were heading north, to the desert to experience frozen tents, more campfires ... and to eat much more cake (to keep us warm of course).

South Oz (pt 2)

I said 'towards' The Alice, not to the Alice!

We drove north out of Adelaide and headed to the Clare Valley. It seems like every spare patch of ground in SA is cultivated with grape vines and Clare Valley is one of the famous wine areas. We weren't there to see the vineyards, but I did want to check out the winemaker Knappstein, who also brew an interesting lager. More on that later...

From Clare we veered north-west to get to Mount Remarkable National Park, passing through the kind of green pastures we're supposed to call "rolling". I didn't see much rolling, but there was a nice lazy feel about the area, and a beautiful golden sunset:


We camped at Mt Remarkable National Park for the night and woke to see Emus wandering around the site. We saw a lot more of them on our trip...

There was a particularly friendly young Kookaburra too.

After a walk to Sugargum lookout we hopped in the car and drove up to Port Augusta to get some provisions, then on towards Wilpena at Flinders Range National Park. We had arranged to meet Helen and Jacques who were adventuring their way down from Queensland via the dirt roads in their desert cruising Navarra.

Progress wasn't quick though as Ella wanted to get shots of the landscape as it changed from farmland into a kind of liminal desert scrub.


After a night with H&J we got motivated for a good long walk - a welcome bit of exercise after a lot of driving (see the map at the bottom to see our progress so far).

Our first walk was to the summit of mighty St Mary Peak - 1170m. This turned into a really nice day's walking.

The peak is part of the range that forms a ring, or 'pound' known as Wilpena Pound - a truly impressive and unusual geological form. After walking up to the peak from the outside of the perimeter range we went down into the pound and across its centre back to the camp site. You might be able to see the path we took down in the second photo.




It would have been impossible to not notice how spectacular the hardy trees were in this gnarly country. Although winter is supposed to be relatively wet, it was extremely dry; we were coming across river beds dry as dust but wide to suggest torrents flow when it does rain. This tree truly did shimmer silver in the winter sun!


A wife in a tree!


That was a good opening walk to get us started, we were to see a lot more stunning SA scenery in the coming days.



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