[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – The Final Episode – The Event at last

Episode 12 – The Final Episode – The Event at last

G’day folklings,

As this is our very last Tales from the Trail, we would like to sincerely thank all of you who supported us throughout the whole time – from training to event. So many people donated to a cause that we felt was worthy enough to make the effort for. From Tracy’s work colleague who, along with the rest of his family, donated on behalf of his grand-daughter to honour the assistance that charity dollars had provided in keeping her alive at the Royal Children’s Hospital for 4 years until a cure could be found for her, to the members of Gwen’s weight loss club (TOWN) who were so inspired by her efforts that their continued donations spurred her on. The members of Gwen, Thelma and Maureen’s church, who decided that walking wasn’t enough and that Gwen needed to practise her public speaking to explain the cause to them as well, to our son’s primary school who conducted a gold-coin donation casual dress day. Our friends and our families who supported us so much, both with donations and with the moral support that helped us on our journey. We thank you all. Between you all, team 672 “We’re doing what?” has raised over $3,000 towards helping disadvantaged communities around the world.

Secondly, we need to thank, as we could never have done the walk without them, our support crew. Steve and Bev, Chris, Thelma and Charles, Sandi and Maureen. You guys were fantastic! You came out training with us, you were ready with yummy, warm, energy rich food at each check point, you pampered us, you filled up our water bottles, you were ready with changes of socks, bandaids and extra clothing for when we needed it, and you did it all in ½ hour blocks before getting us out of the checkpoint on schedule, packing up and moving to the next spot to do it all again. Thank you from the soles of our feet.

And the last group, but by no mean the least, our families, particularly Kira, Liam and George, who lived without us every Saturday for 4 months as we went out to train, who massaged us, who rolled their eyes at our stories, and who will now need to learn to have us around again. And to Ken, for graciously ‘sitting on babies’ every week. We really do appreciate it. Thank you to all of you for letting us have this time.

We're doing what? (672) 32 hrs 53 mins

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 10 – But it’s dark!

Episode 10 – But it’s dark!

Our last long training walk before the big event saw us down at Inverloch and choosing to walk the Great Southern Rail Trail from Foster to Leongatha. Starting at 5:30PM on Saturday night, we headed off from Foster to walk the 14 km to Fish Creek. Being a Rail Trail, it’s relatively flat, wide and straight. All things guaranteed to bring sighs of joy to Gwen and Frances. The walk was mainly through farmland with pine forest beside the track and at one point we could see clearly across to Corner Inlet.

Starting from Charity Lane, Foster, at 5:30PM Saturday night.

After the Alice in Wonderland walk we had a couple of weeks ago, we were in the mood to see rabbits running late (“I’m sure he had a fob-watch”) and large toadstools (“if you eat a bit from this side you will grow taller”). The caterpillar’s hookah resembles the drinking tube for our water … well, we were convinced …

Anyway, coming in to Fish Creek and meeting up with our support crew just as the remaining light fled for the night was lovely, although doing a checkpoint in the dark was a learning experience for us all.

Putting on our head torches for the first time, we set off again, this time for a 16 km walk in the dark. Walking in the dark was surreal, with frogs calling, possums watching us, and bats flying across the path. With such limited light, it felt that we weren’t so much moving through the bush, as having it cocoon us.

Night walking @ 9:30PM - still an hour and a half to go tonight.

Our biggest lesson for the night was that if you look down and watch your feet rather than looking ahead, you can easily zig when you should zag, and so fall off the edge of the track because you don’t have the wider view readily available. Oops!

We were picked up at around 11PM from Stony Creek, and taken back to Inverloch for a short sleep, only to be up and off again at 6AM. In the morning we didn’t need our head torches, so we left them behind and, with the requisite amount of grumbling “I don’t do mornings”, we were on our way again. The morning was a short 18 km, with a break in the middle to car shuffle along the missing bit of track and have a cup of tea. So at 9:30AM we were walking into Leongatha and ready to call it a day (and get the shoes off).

Day 2, just before 7am - Pumphouse bridge just after Meeniyan

Along the way in training, we’ve dealt with blisters, night walking, eating and drinking, walking pole technique, and how silly we can get to keep ourselves entertained. I think we may be ready … which is good really as the Oxfam Trailwalker is only 2 ½ weeks away. No more long training walks now as we’re in recovery phase. Closer to the time we’ll let you know how to keep track of our progress during the event.

Cheers, Tracy, Darren, Gwen and Frances
Team 672: “We’re Doing What?”

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 9, where did Frances go?

Episode 9 – where did Frances go?

We’ve lost Frances! She was last seen in the wilds of the Otways, laughing hysterically at having got out of this week’s training session. If found, please return before next weekend.

The remaining three team members, and the majority of the support crew, trained on the trail again, walking the first 3 sections, Jells Park to Ferny Creek, which is approximately 38 km. While we’ve done all of these sections before, we were redoing them as we did Jells Park to Lysterfield Lake as our very first training session and there’s been a lot of walking since then. Unlike last time, it was, rather pleasantly, not 34 degrees. The flat bits were flatter, the lake was sploshier, the kangaroos were jumpier, the hill was … no, it was just as steep, but required less rest stops.

★ The Start – Checkpoint 1 (12.5km) Jells Park Conference Centre to Churchill National Park
★ Checkpoint 1 – Checkpoint 2 (9.5km) Churchill National Park to Lysterfield Lake Picnic Area
★ Checkpoint 2 – Checkpoint 3 (15.5km) Lysterfield Lake Picnic Area to Ferny Creek Recreation Reserve

No icypole this time, but lunch with our support crew at Lysterfield Lake, and we were ready to tackle the Belgrave section. Lysterfield Lake to Ferny Creek via Belgrave has lots of uphill sections, and those stairs, but we waved to Puffing Billy again, and the driver waved back, we even discovered a pleasant tasting gel; rhubarb and custard (this is a major feat!), and we did not have to climb over a single tree. Hillclimb Track out of Belgrave to Ferny Creek was our obstacle course last time, but they’ve cleaned the track up and we had nothing to distract us from the steepness of the climb. Hmmm, pros and cons to the obstacle course. Anyway, with nothing to climb we were faster up the track and surprised our support crew by coming in to Ferny Creek much earlier than anticipated.

We had a fabulous support crew, thank you guys, you were so efficient and organised and encouraging. With both the walking team and the support team training together we’ve got so many things worked out, we’re almost ready for the big day. Which is good really, as there’s only 3 weekends left before the Trailwalker event is on for real.

Next weekend, night walking.
Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 8, what goes up must go up further

Episode 8 – what goes up must go up further

This week we decided to walk the final 40 km of the actual trail to find out what it would be like and to get a feel for what the second day of walking will do to us.

Mt Evelyn to Woori Yallock is along the Warburton Rail Trail and is essentially 13 km of flat gravel bike path winding through bushland then farmland to come in behind the Woori Yallock Primary School. Gwen and Frances love this section of the track and many jokes were made about the sticks lying across the path “Tree!” and the trestle bridges we crossed “Look up! Don’t look down!” No one in our team’s going to get vertigo.

We pulled into the primary school to meet our lovely support crew who had toasted sandwiches and fresh fruit for us, only to discover that every other team who had gone past before us had tried to hijack them “Please can we adopt your support crew” was a common refrain from the others we met on the track. I think a few were going home to tell their crews that it was time for them to start training too.

So after our ½ hour break, our crew sent us on our way and promised to meet us at the O’Shannassy Aqueduct. From Woori Yallock to O’Shannassy is about 14.5 km and again starts out on the Rail Trail (I can still hear Gwen sighing with pleasure at the total lack of hills). Then, just as you’re about to go past the Launching Place Hotel and are thinking that maybe a quick detour is in order, the trail turns left (what? but it’s just there … it was so close). Oh well, so far so good, still only a shallow rise, then another turn and it gets a bit steeper, and another turn and a nasty goat track climb onto the aqueduct. Short and sharp, meh. We’re getting used to those.

O'Shannassy Aqueduct Trail

The aqueduct trail is a bit like being in Alice in Wonderland where every turn appears to bring you back to the same place, over and over and over again and it seemed we would never see the end. And then suddenly we did. We were bumped off the end onto a road and there, again, was our lovely crew.

Again, refreshment, topping up of water bottles, and off again. This time a shorter walk, starting on the aqueduct trail and then heading down to the Warburton Golf Club. A runner came past, training to do the Trailwalker in 17 hours, who also wanted to adopt our crew as he’d had a rest and some fruit and a chat with them on his way through. This section was much easier than we expected and as we headed into the golf club, we met our friendly runner again coming out. To his joy, our crew had arrived there just before he left.

Backstairs Track

Another break and then onto possibly the hardest part of the trail, Mt Little Joe. It goes up, then flat, then down, then up then down again for a grand total of only 7 km but we were expecting it to take about 3 hours. Those ups and downs are steep. With our trusty walking poles in hand we climbed every mountain, stopping for a rest every few minutes and then joy! We could see the end! Down the hill, around the bend, through the bush, find the gate, we’re here! Practicing our big finish we met up with our wonderful support crew again, hugs all round, a hot drink and then home for dinner. We finished that section in under 2 ½ hours. We were rapt!

Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 7, less than 6 weeks to go

G’day folklngs,

Darren was asked this week after our walk “could you run the Oxfam Trailwalker”. His reply was “probably more easily than I can walk it, but what I couldn’t do easily would be to find 3 more people who also wanted to run it, and at my pace”. Because, that’s the thing, this is a team event and we’re doing it as a team and the aim of team is for all four of us to finish (well actually, it’s to raise money for Oxfam, I shouldn’t forget that, but the second aim is for all four of us to finish). We have a time in which we’d like to get it done, but the most important thing as walkers is to work as a team. We all have or strengths and weaknesses, and our training is letting us learn how to exploit each other’s strengths and how to recognise in each other when we’re starting to struggle so that we can do something about it before it becomes a problem. When do we eat, what and how much, how often and how much do we drink, when does water get replaced by energy cordial, when do we need to pull our pace back a bit, when can we push a bit faster? Sorting out the answers to these questions are causing us to improve our performance and long-distance ability. A few weeks ago, 27 km was the sticking point for energy levels, this week we had no problem with 33 km.

On the return leg from Brighton

Anyway, that’s all a bit serious, so here’s a change of pace.
This week we decided to have a change of scenery and walk along the beach. Mordialloc to Brighton and back. The weather was warm ,the breeze was cool, the scenery was lovely. The path wound along beside the beach, sometimes down at beach level, sometimes up at the road, so we had a combination of surfaces to walk on and the occasional climb down to or up from beach level (do these classify as hills? – there was much discussion regarding the fact, it was never satisfactorily resolved). This is an extended version of the walk that Gwen and Frances were initially training on before Christmas so it was home turf for them. Much to Gwen’s disappointment there were no trees to climb over. We’ll have to look for some next week. Also, we decided that we should have put some fancy clothes in our packs because we passed so many weddings and we were not dressed appropriately to blend in and gatecrash. Nobody seemed to think that sweaty t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, daypack and hat were the height of elegance so they spotted us straight away each time. Ah well, it would only have slowed us down. Anyway, a good walk to Brighton, a break, and a good walk back. No problems. A promising sign considering the Trailwalk is less than 6 weeks away. Which brings me to the fundraising part of the event, we have to raise a minimum of $1000 before the event to be allowed to start, so I would like to thank every one of you who has sponsored us so far, we have nearly made it to that target. We are so close already, thank you. If you do want to sponsor us but aren’t sure how to, you can do it by clicking on our team page (address below) and then clicking on ‘donate now’.

Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 6, less than 7 weeks to go

G’day folklings,

We headed back to the trail this week, doing two sections.
Lysterfield Lake, through Belgrave and on the Ferny Creek was the first, with Ferny Creek to Olinda being the second. All in all, about 23 km.

The first 8 km or so were relatively flat (it’s all relative), under trees and quite a pleasant walk as we headed closer and closer to Belgrave, then we began to go up. It had to happen I suppose, you’re never going to be able to get to Belgrave without climbing a hill somewhere. Then stairs !?!? Whose big idea was stairs? They took us up to the Belgrave pool then we headed across to the Belgrave Railway Station and Puffing Billy Station (Thomas was on duty this week).

OTWM training CP2 to CP4 : up there!

Waving goodbye to Puffing Billy, we continued on up the hill and re-entered bushland. The track from here on in alternated between steep and slippery (both up and down), soft and squishy and then, and here’s where I run out of good “S” words, covered with leaves, branches and trees. We’re hoping that there may have been some track clearing before the event in April.
So … this week’s obstacle course is modelled by Gwen .

Under the trees

and … over the trees

That kept us entertained for the next few km as we climbed the aptly named Hillclimb Track before reaching the Ferny Creek Rec Reserve. A break, some food, a hot drink and we were off again (thanks to our support crew who now with us in learning how this all works).

Then a re-visit of the 7 km Ferny Creek to Olinda section of the trail, including the dreaded 30 degree climb up Hacketts Rd (at least it wasn’t raining this time). A bit of a re-think on where we needed to eat to get the best energy output and less than 2 hours later we were at Olinda. And our support crew weren’t. We beat them! We win! They were busy picking up the cars that had been left behind at Lysterfield Lake and hadn’t quite made it back yet. So, a few more steps into Olinda township as we heard those coffees calling our names, and we debriefed around hot drinks as the rain finally arrived.

A good day.

Love Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – “Let’s go to Southbank for an ice-cream”

G’day folklings,

“Let’s go to Southbank for an ice-cream”. We had tried 2 years ago and were hailed out before we got there, so we had decided to try again.
The Main Yarra Trail follows the Yarra River from Warrandyte, through Eltham, and all the way to the city. From Eltham to Southbank is 34 km and relatively flattish. Distance, no hills, a good stretch of the legs while we don’t have Darren with us.

Then it started to heat up, each day the weather report added another degree to the expected temperature for Saturday. “Gwen, Frances, how’s your relationship with the weather man? If you ask nicely do you think he might cool it down a bit?” Well, that didn’t work so, plan B, start early and try to beat the worst of the heat.

We met up at 7 am, fuffed around a bit and were on the trail before 7:30. The constant call this week was “Bike!”, and occasionally “Runner!” when we would move aside to let them pass then spread out again afterward.

We walked, we talked, we admired the runners (particularly those 2 in blue who helped us when we weren’t sure which way the trail went), we played bingo: runner + cyclist + skater + walker = Bingo! And we eventually made it to Fairfield Boathouse where we had planned to stop for lunch. Lunch at the Boathouse doesn’t start ‘til midday so at just before 11 we were looking at the Breakfast menu. Eggs, bacon and sausage are obviously very popular for breakfast but not if you’ve just walked 19 km and it’s starting to get hot, so we ignored the many, many variations of the above theme and had pancakes with banana and ice-cream.

After lunch we continued along, passed Collingwood Children’s Farm, where we were hailed out last time, and made it to Burnley before the heat was getting to us enough to make us decide that, although we had less the 5 km to go, it was time to call it quits and finish up. Onto the train at Burnley into the city, then back out on the Eltham train and home to cool down.

Maybe next time we’ll reach that ice-cream.

Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 4 – 9 weeks to go

G’day folklings,

“Have you got your keys? “ and “I’ve got my keys” were constant calls throughout this walk.
This week’s walk was from Olinda (where we finished last week), through Mt Evelyn and finishing up at Woori Yallock, a grand total of 28 km (unless you get geographically challenged and then it’s a bit longer, oops) so we really didn’t want to turn around at the end.

We had organised to meet up with Darren’s family at Mt Evelyn as the first practice run of meeting our support crew so we knew we only had to do 15 km (-ish) before we had a social break and then started off on the next 13 km.

I know I keep going on about how beautiful the walk is when walking through the Dandenongs, but we realised as we were admiring the views, again, that we really need to enjoy them now as on the actual day a lot of this will be done in the dark. Hmm, we really need to try out walking with head torches some time in the next few weeks.

So anyway, we walked through gorgeous bushland, downhill, which was even better, and turned into KC track which normally looks like a small goat track off the main path but after last week’s rain was really obvious, met up with some other walkers who turned out to be people Tracy knew, and then took a slight detour from the map. After meeting the water tank that shouldn’t have been there, we recalibrated, found a new track to get us back to George’s Track (just to keep Gwen happy) and then were back on target.

KCs track

There were a number of trees and branches down across the tracks, obviously a result of the recent storm and, after moving a couple of the smaller ones, decided that we’d just climb over. Gwen is a tad shorter in the leg department than the rest of us, so our final tree found her stranded atop a large tree trunk before deciding the only thing to do was jump off (all without losing any dignity of course). We had a final uphill (so we knew we were on the right track) scramble then climb into Mt Evelyn, making us realise why it’s called Mt Evelyn and not just Evelyn, before getting onto the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail. Not long after that we met our support crew, they gave us sandwiches and hot chocolate, we topped up our water bottles and were on our way again.

13 km along the Rail Trail to Woori Yallock. Flat, straight, wide path, shade for a lot of it, not a bad little walk. We tried picking up the pace a bit to push ourselves and finished about 1/2 hour before either we, or our support crew, expected us to. We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves after the walk, and went back to Tracy and Darren’s house to meet up with our full support crew to start discussing how we’re going to do things on the actual day. All in all, a pretty productive day of preparation.

Next week we’re back off the trail as Darren, once again, has other commitments. This time he’s on a Venturer camp. So us three women are choosing another location to walk.

Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – episode 3 – 10 weeks to go

G’day folklings,

Back on the actual track this week, we decided to keep it short as we’ve pushed our bodies pretty hard for the last couple of weeks and Gwen was going out in the evening (see we do take real life into consideration sometimes). So we chose one of the shortest sections of the trail to practice on, 7.5 km along beautiful bush tracks between Ferny Creek and Olinda.

This section of the trail is stunning. We were walking through rainforest country, with tree ferns and Sassafras under a canopy of Mountain Ash. And, shock horror!, the first half of this walk was downhill. The Alfred Nicholls Gardens are gorgeous, and would be a lovely place to come back to for a picnic when it wasn’t raining. Oh yes, I haven’t mentioned that bit yet. It wasn’t 34 degrees this week, which was a really nice change. It was 17 degrees and drizzling, but we didn’t mind the rain one little bit after the heat of the last couple of weeks. However it did lead Darren to wonder why, since we were trail-running, did we have hiking weather?

Walking amongst tree ferns - Check out the walking poles

At approximately the half-way mark, the trail became more like what we expected, and stopped going downhill and started going uphill. Hacketts Rd … universally accepted as the nastiest hill on the whole trail. It may not be the steepest (but if it’s not it is certainly close) and it may not be the longest (800 m), but it’s a hard slog. But, we tried out our walking poles and fairly flew up that hill! I’m not sure whether it was the poles, the cooler weather, or that last week’s hills were so big, but whatever it was, Hacketts Rd didn’t feel as bad as we’d expected (don’t get me wrong here, it was still hard work).
There was more uphill for a couple more km before we reached the Olinda Checkpoint and the car. At which point, Frances realised that when she’d taken her jacket off at the other car … well, her keys were in the pocket. So we turned around and went back. So, a 15 km walk and we still managed to get Gwen home in time to get ready to go out, life was good.

Warning signs on Hacketts Rd The walk down was easier than the walk up

Back at the other car we got changed into some dry clothes, drove up to pick up Frances‘ car and stopped for a coffee in Olinda. They had the largest, most impressive looking vanilla slices we have ever seen, and although we didn’t have one then we’re definitely planning a return journey.

Cheers, Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?

[Trailwalker] Tales from the trail – training tales for the Oxfam Trailwalker

G’day folklings,

♫ On the road trail again … ♫.
Training has started in earnest now as the walk is less than 12 weeks away.

The four of us have finally trained together, instead of 2 by 2, a pastime that we intend to continue for the next 11 weeks.
So, this week we decided to try out the first 2 sections of the actual trail, from Jells Park to Lysterfield Lake, which adds up to 22 km, to see what it would be like and how it compared to our preparatory training.

This section of the trail is mostly undulating. In fact I think our trail notes calls it ‘gently undulating’. Then, once it has lulled you into a false sense of security, it throws a steep hill at the unsuspecting and innocent walker. You go up it veerry slowly, you lean on the sign at the top and pretend you’re looking at the fabulous view (see attached photo), then you go down it, and return to the gently undulating terrain feeling slightly shell-shocked and finally end up crossing the dam wall at Lysterfield Lake and heading through the BBQ area to the checkpoint.

Saturday's team training from the Start to CP2, top of the hill

Let’s see … compared to our preparatory training walks;

• Similar in length, so we were doing well there.
• Steeper, Gwen and Frances discovered that their previous training walks hadn’t included any real uppy and downy bits so we need to put a little more work into practicing those. (Guess what we’re doing next weekend, ladies…, Eltham has lots of uppy and downy bits to practice on).
• Hotter, somebody forgot to dial the temperature down and we sweltered a bit. Who’s big idea was it to walk on a 34 degree day?!? Ooh, that’d be me, shhh, don’t tell anyone.
  Well, being hot, we went through all our water and all our sugar-laden cordial and when we reached Lysterfield Lake we found a shop that sold icy-poles. That was, just possibly, everyone’s favourite part of the day. We really felt that we had earned those icy-poles.

I suggested to Gwen (from memory it was on the up bit of the hill) that the purpose of walking hard on the training sessions was so that she was too tired at the end to hit me, but she has threatened that if necessary she’ll take a contract out so it won’t matter if she doesn’t have the energy. Frances, on the other hand, plans on going straight to a higher authority and is teeing up a lightning bolt for just in case.

Runkeeper Activity Log (click image to visit)

Darren is already thinking logistically, on things such as how much water we need to carry, what we need to eat and when, and whether hiking poles will be a good idea for the hills. He’s the one finding the walking easiest, so we’ll leave all that stuff to him.

So, next week is off the trail and closer to home (well, my home anyway) and concentrating on some hill practice.

Cheers Tracy

Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne – 100 km – teams of 4 – 48 hours
To read more about my team go to Team 672 : We’re doing what?