Fitting multi-day walks
into working life isn’t
easy. But testing out
shorter sections of the
walk can be a great
short-term solution.
Taste-
Testing
TREKKING UPDATE
A
multi-daytrekis a big
commitment,demandinga lot
of yourtimeandresources.
Undertakingoneinvolves
painstakingpreparationandsacrifice
beforeit hasevenbegun,notonlyin
jugglingthezerosumof beingwell
equippedandkeepingyourpackreasonably
weighted,butin conjuringa blackholeof
freetimefroma galaxyof commitments.
Multi-day treks, with all their deep
meaning, welcome suffering, and prolonged
glory, will always be my number one,
abandon-all-else the moment they’re
available, pedestal-residing activity. But,
like many people find, most of the time I
have to subsist on day walks. To fuel
life-sustaining reveries of multi-day treks,
I’ve taken to taste-testing them.
One which really whet my appetite lately
was the 250km Great South West Walk in
Victoria.Overthecourseof a weekend
basedoutof Portland,mypartnerandI
sampleda fewof thesegmentsyoucan
easilyaccessfora day’souting.
If you’re out this way yourself, hike up the
headland along the Cape Bridgewater Seal
Walk. The walk, steep at times, travels
about 2km, mostly uphill. Near the trig
point marking the summit, you find several
spread-out viewing platforms, from which
you can look down on the largest seal
colony in mainland Australia. It’s all green
grass and rolling headlands, the relative
calmness of the bay, thriving and playful
animal life.
All it takes to give yourself a sense of the
diversity on offer is to take a short drive to
the western side of the cape near
Bridgewater Blowholes and Petrified Forest.
This part of the coast is alien from the
eastern side; you could be on anotherplanet. Ragged limestone formations line
the track: crumbling pillars, rough-hewn
craters, stratified faces fanned like packets
of blades.
It looks as if acid rain has corroded the
orange surfaces, leaving a trail of ruins
along the battered coast — the desolate
abodes of a sand people who never existed.
Dead trees leaning leeward and green-grey
shrubs growing in clumps find a fragile
hold in the soil, as dark sand sifts over the
landscape, as if to claim it back.
I’m now utterly enamoured with these
two sections of the coast and engrossed in
what more the trek will hold. Testing out
short segments of longer walks like this is a
great way to give yourself something to look
forward to. It’s thefirstdate in a long
relationship withtheplace.^
— Sam RichardsOutdoor Outdoor \\ 1515