Tabla de contenidos para December-January 2025 en Great Walks

IT’S not every day you get to write about a trail you hike almost daily! Yet here I am, living at the southern end of the Hume & Hovell Track in Albury, lucky enough to have a slice of this historic path right in my own backyard. Stretching a whopping 426km from Yass to Albury, the track follows the journey of explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, who completed their 1824 expedition to Port Phillip in search of new grazing land. Interestingly, this year is the 200-year bicentenary of the original expedition. With five well-marked sections, the Hume & Hovell Track is easy to navigate. Whether you’re after a day hike or planning to tackle the entire route, this iconic pilgrimage has something for everyone. It also showcases several “hero”…

I don’t mind admitting that the older I get, the more I crave a few creature comforts. So, my eyes lit up when I spotted a hiking holiday with comfortable and luxurious lodge accommodation, gourmet food and some of the world’s best wines on offer. A hot shower and a big comfy bed to rest up for the next day’s walking, waking up surrounded by nature, followed by a healthy nourishing breakfast, ticks plenty of boxes. In a time when I’m striving for more ‘balance’, a big walk in the morning, rewarded with a gourmet lunch with wine and a relaxing afternoon sounds like the perfect itinerary. If it is wilderness, wine and food that appeals, then Clare Valley Walk guided tours in South Australia’s famous Clare Valley wine region…

WITH her arms outstretched against the pale blue sky, the golden Madonna seemed to be urging me on when really she was looking over my shoulder to the splendour of the north face of Mt Rosa, Europe’s second highest peak, sitting like a giant Buddha, its arm embracing the Anazasca Valley. I grabbed the chain anyway, dug my toes into the snow and hauled myself up to where she stood. The Madonna is perched on a granite ridge, the Mt Moro Pass, which separates Italy from Switzerland and marked the end of a hike that started six days earlier in Biella, a prosperous textile town 95km north of Turin, where the Po plain butts up against the foothills of the Italian Alps. It had taken me nearly one hundred kilometres,…

WALKING around a bend, we came across the source of the music that had been increasingly invading our serenity. It began not long after we set off on the first leg of our hike in an area of Germany known as Saxon Switzerland. Blaring from a large loudspeaker mounted on a post beside the path was the ‘best of’ selection of composer Richard Wagner, whose imposing shrine towered over us. The unusual homage to the famous classical musician seemed quite incongruous in this forest setting, with the melodies competing with nature’s own symphony emanating from the adjacent stream. It was all quite unexpected to find a musician honoured like this in pride of place on a hike named after the famous painters. Despite being called the Malerweg (translated in English…

UNLESS you’re into cold soaking or – eek! – using a crotch pot, you’re going to be carrying a stove of some sort on your overnight adventures (some experts suggest that even if you don’t plan to cook, one should be carried as a safety measure in case of hypothermia or shock). While you might think that a flame is a flame is a flame, you’d be wrong, because whether you’re a straight-up, boiling water, dehydrated meal kind of person, or a full-on, Thai green curry with basmati rice gourmet hiker, it will make a difference to which model you choose. Ultralighters have different requirements to those who favour a little luxury over a single-figure base weight. In this issue’s gear overview, Great Walks has tried to cover the full…

BEHIND THE SCENES PINETREES LODGE What’s your earliest bushwalking memory? Following a man called ‘Rangi’ into the NZ bush as a young boy. My eight-year-old buddies and I walked for hours on his heels, found a clearing, put up a tent, and made a fire. Got taught the importance of setting up camp near a stream, but not below a stream. I remember listening to that stream all night long. How important is the outdoors to your lifestyle? We moved to Lord Howe for the outdoor life. Whilst living in London, my wife and I wrote up a list of the top five things we wanted out of the next chapter in our lives, and ‘getting back to nature’ was #1. When you’ve got a fuzzy head, there’s no better…

The 2-3 day/28km Lake Rhona Trail is located within Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. Nestled in the midst of the Denison Ranges, the lake’s beautiful white quartzite sands starkly contrast with the dominant ridges surrounding it, making it a unique sight. The walk starts and ends with a crossing of the Gordon River. The trail follows flat buttongrass marshland for a majority of the distance before an abrupt but relatively short climb of 400m in the final section below the lake. You need to register with Parks Tas to do this walk as there is a maximum of 20 people allowed to start the walk each day. For detailed walk notes visit tastrails.com Photo_ tastrails.com…

AS another year comes to a close, another hunt for “what’s new” begins. A human instinct is to look ahead, to look forward, and look forward to. That’s what keeps us ticking. At Great Walks, new walks keep us going, along with coffee and chocolate. A walk with coffee and chocolate? Even better. You know the excitement you feel in the pit of your stomach when you’re planning your next walk and adventure? That’s the human mind processing the situation in two ways simultaneously. The amygdala part of the brain scans past experiences to determine if what’s coming is good or not, while the hypothalamus controls the response of the nervous system, regulating your breathing, blood pressure and heart rate. Being excited for something new can enhance memory and attention,…

IN the wild colonial days of the 1860s, the bushrangers who roamed central NSW used the rugged mountainous regions for refuge. 21st century travellers also use these places for refuge, not from the law but for an escape from the pressures of modern life. The bushrangers were not to know that these pockets of high, rugged terrain were remnants of what is now known as the Lachlan Fold Belt; a geological feature which stretches from Queensland through the mid-west of NSW and on into Victoria. Four sections of the Fold Belt that would have been well known to the bushranger gangs have now been dedicated as national parks. Weddin Mountains, Conimbla, Nangar and Goobang national parks were created to conserve the flora, fauna and landscapes of these remnant pockets of…

IN out last issue (Great Walks 2024 Annual) we featured a story on the Sandakan Death Marches in Borneo and on pg 46 in this issue we have a cracking story on the Trails to Freedom Walk in Italy. There two walks are part of a great collection of war history walks where you can follow in the footsteps of soldiers in past conflicts including the First and Second World Wars. Here’s our pick of other war walks that will educate, challenge, and inspire. Kokoda Track, PNG 96km/6-8 days This has to be at the top of the list. The infamous Kokoda Track is one of Australia’s most significant WWII campaigns. Within seven months, hundreds of Australians had fought and died in PNG as they tried to defend and hold…

“ALL OF THE WALKERS ARE HOBBLING AROUND LIKE THEY HAVE A STICK UP THEIR BUM!” IT is not at all surprising that Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills starved to death on their return journey to the Gulf of Carpentaria. There is nothing on the banks of the Cooper Creek but dirt, rocks and Coolabah trees. Robert O’Hara Burke was Castlemaine’s police superintendent when he was selected to lead the Victorian Exploratory Expedition of 1860 – the rest is embedded in our Australian history. I participated in the Burke and Wills commemorative trek from 20-31 August 2014. It covered 337km over two deserts – the Strzelecki and Sturt’s Stony between Innamincka in South Australia to Birdsville in Queensland. I participated in this extraordinary event to raise money for research…

JUST FOR LAUGHS OVER the decades I’ve introduced several new folks to the outdoors. Sometimes a new dedicated hiker is created … and sometimes not. Some people readily ‘click’ with the outdoors, while others are repelled. The overarching hurdle, and there is no getting around the fact, is that hiking involves discomfort … whether it’s the terrain and its obstacles, being exposed to the elements, or the physical effort involved. A brief review of a typical trip reveals a series of less-than-appealing experiences that don’t aid recruitment. The day’s route, generously referred to as “a track” presented a myriad of challenges – river crossings, tormenting insects, navigational mishaps. Botanically, there were piles of windthrow and thickets of interwoven scrub to negotiate. Quadriceps burned during the grind up to the pass…

MANY Australians may not know much about Timor-Leste (East Timor), other than its history of struggle and independence, but having spent the best part of a year exploring the country, I can confidently say that the hiking here is some of the best in the world. Upon arriving in Timor-Leste, I was struck by the diversity of its scenery, with near 3,000m-high peaks, picturesque waterfalls, rejuvenating hot springs, and idyllic beaches. For a country 20% of the size of Tasmania, the range of landscapes is quite incredible, and not what you may imagine from a small island in Southeast Asia. Trails, while largely unmarked, cross the entire country. While hiking, you’re almost certain to encounter only locals, who are among the friendliest and most welcoming people in the world. For…

DURING the 11km from Kelly’s Beach/the Basin to Burnet Heads you will encounter the eponymous sea creature more than once. But not necessarily in ways you may imagine. Black rocks, spewed millions of years ago by the Hummock volcano are a feature of these beaches. The rocks were cleared from the sugar farms by Kanakas (South Pacific workers) who also built the Basin, a safe swimming area south of Bargara, and still used by bathers to this day. Your first encounter with turtles comes at the Bargara children’s playground, where the kids clamour over the very colourful Big Turtle play structure. Restore yourself at the cafes or town pub and head north to Neilson Park, stopping to admire the ochre-coloured beach sand and the historic palms that line the camping…

A challenging three-day hike across two mountain plateaus and two national parks, the 54k Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk is an enchanting journey of waterfalls, Antarctic beech trees, caldera views and the occasional cantankerous cow… Day One Green Mountains to Binna Burra 21.4km (via Toolona Creek 23.3km) I have no idea who counted the legendary 500 waterfalls of Lamington National Park in Southeast Queensland but, if ever they need a stocktake, I'll gladly sign up for the job. A waterfall tragic, I can’t resist swapping out a corner of the official Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk (apologies to the purists) for the cascade-riddled Toolona Creek trail, even if it does add mileage to day one’s hike. The sharp crack of whip birds and the snarl of unseen catbirds punctuate the…

IT’S been seven years since my family and I were on Lord Howe and I have many great memories of that trip so when our good friends at Pinetrees Lodge invited us back we jumped at the chance. I was excited to return as my kids Matilda (14) and Billy (12) were now old enough to fully experience what Lord Howe and Pinetrees had to offer. Here are some photos from our amazing island holiday. NEED TO KNOW For info about Pinetrees Lodge visit pinetrees.com.au…