A bit of a walk

We're into our last week in town in Canberra now, next Tuesday we will take the bus to Sydney, and it's not many more days and we will be bound for Chile. I decided to do some walking. Some time ago Jonathan and I somehow came up with this VM Challenge. The concept of VM came from the German word for World Cup or World Championship, weltmesiterschaft, which the Germans pronounce vee-emm. Our original challenge was to run up 5 mountains, going by bike between each one.

We never made it to any of those mountains running, but I decided the better idea would be to do the full challenge, walking. I told a couple of others about it and they were keen too, especially if the walking challenge was fuelled by beer. Of course, it never happened, but I had most of a day to kill, and didn't want to spend it standing in lines.

So the original plan was to go Mt Majura>Mt Ainslie>Black Mountain>Mt Painter>The Pinnacle. Some may argue that The Pinnacle is not a mountain, but none of them really are, and this run made the best case for not having to travel too far between destinations.

Anyhow, I had already walked around 10km before I started my "real" walking, which could explain why I didn't get to the end. I stopped in Weetangera for a pie, what a weird combination of shops they have there. No supermarket, but they have a publisher...righto.

From the shops I cut across the backstreets and made my way to The Pinnacle. Up a few steps, no worries, there we go. A fairly easy start. So as to not go through any private property, I took the loop track right back around to the main entrance and went on to Mt Painter. I had been up there once before, but it was a bit more of a climb coming from the bottom end. When you come from Cook, the parking area is already some way uphill. It wasn't too much effort to get up there, however the part that always had me wondering about this trip is where to go between Mt Painter and Black Mountain. I wasn't sure if it would be better to go through the suburb or Aranda, or to cut through the Aranda Bushland area.

I came down the mountain and decided to head for the bush. This turned out to be the right option, as soon enough I was on the Old Weetangera Road. This must have been one of the first roads heading further out of town. There is a little house just behind the stadium, which is called Weetangera Homestead. This old track, though it is now interrupted a few times by major roads, begins there.

In a previous expedition to Black Mountain I had come across that road, so I knew I was on the right trail. Heading up the Black Mountain trail was a lot more strenuous than my previous efforts, and with the sun on my back, I was definitely feeling the effects. I had to stop for a while and this photo shows a pretty accurate description of how I was feeling.

What a looker...

So at the top I contemplated whether I would pay the entrance fee to go in the Telstra Tower. I decided not too, and just sat on a chair and rested for quite some time. Heading back down I was reminded of what must have been the first time I walked up Black Mountain. Coming down, almost back to the road, there was a bloke with a t-shirt, and absolutely nothing underneath. That sure was a weird sight!

I had never been into the Botanical Gardens before, as most of the times I've taken the track has been outside of the garden hours, so I popped through the gate. The Gardens have the largest collection of Australian plants and trees in the world, but in Australia, are gum trees etc all that impressive? The rainforest section I was much more impressed by though, Canberra doesn't really have a climate that produces rainforests.

Whilst I should have carried on to the final two mountains, instead I headed in to the city for a beer stop. What my explorations showed though, is that the challenge is definitely achievable. I guess I won't have time this time around, but maybe some time in the future.

Francisca, Spit Bridge to Manly walk.

May write a bit more on this at a later stage.

Stage One: Complete (almost)

Flight Depart Arrive Depart Date D72516 Kuala Lumpur (KUL) Mumbai (BOM) Fri, Aug 5 18:05

So today we will move on to the next stage of our travels. We really have only a vague plan for India and not really too much time to do it in, but it will be an interesting experience. We are starting out from Mumbai and will work our way North up until Nepal, then we fly from Kathmandu to Thailand.

I know we will spend plenty of time on trains, which is really what I imagine from a trip to India, just sitting along, watching the scenes pass by.

Today I read about a couple or record stores in Malaysia, and two were in the same shopping centre. I went there and unfortunately they were both closed. However, one "Campbell's Music Centre" had this poster on the wall

A good album that one, too.

So I continued walking and I came to Bukit Nannas (City Forest)

From near the train station you can disappear into some bushlands, which is for one much cooler, and makes the city seem miles away. There are tracks that can take you right through to the KL Tower as well.

The paths are very well made too, and there are plenty of options to choose from. Now it's time to pack up our things and move on to the next stage of our trip.

The third and final change will be Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before we return to Australia, then almost immediately begin a new adventure in Chile.

Mt Painter and Surrounds

Yesterday was a big day of walking. We decided to walk up a mountain somewhere and chose Mt Painter in Cook, one I hadn't been to before. Although it stands at 743m, it is a very easy walk on a fairly well made path.

We hadn't been walking long and were already at the top, so we continued walking over to The Pinnacle which is across a main road, but not too far. We have been to The Pinnacle before, so we continued along the Springvale Track which took us along the back fences of Hawker. I was surprised to see almost every backyard littered with swimming pools, tennis courts and the like. On the way back I led us on some horrendous wrong turns, but we got there eventually.

When we were on top of Mt Painter I also got a short Footbag run in.

Honeysuckle Lookout

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

BANG BANG BANG

Manager: Private

Sometimes it gives you a feeling of prestige, but sometimes there's no escape, for example, 5 am this morning.

With bleary eyes I eventually made my way to the door.

"We've got no door".
"What do you mean?

What the girl meant was she had locked herself out, could I come open the door. That's not really the sort of thing you want to hear that early in the morning. Conveniently it was just the room next door, so things weren't too difficult.

After a short attempt at getting back to sleep I decided my attempts would not be worthwhile. I thought it might be the only chance to see the sun rising from the sea on this trip. After walking past some very, very late night revellers and some early starting triathletes, I realised today was not the day for that either and headed inland, navigating my way through the backstreets of Airlie (all three of them) toward the top of the hill. The Great Whitsunday Walk is 28km of trek, taking you to Cedar Creek Falls. I didn't want to do that, but my track, to Honeysuckle Lookout would take me through the last section of that track. The track is barely signposted, which after walking parts of it, I think is so that every backpacker and his dog would try and make the Great Walk after a pint or two too many.

There is actually no mention of the Great Walk up until the turnoff to Honeysuckle Lookout, where it informs you to travel further you need to have a permit. I was surprised by the almost complete lack of signage about the walk, even compared to Mt Rooper which I visited a few weeks ago.

The walk basically switches from time to time between open woodland into rainforest, very similar to where we walked in Paluma, which is between Townsville and Ingham, a little while inland. Here is a photo from Paluma, I didn't take any photos today.


I'm glad I wasn't walking all the way up their to get some sort of panormaic Whitsunday spread, as the view from the lookout was completely shrouded in fog. I could only just slightly make out Abel Point marina, if I looked hard. A sign midway along the track told me I would have a splendid view of the islands, but apparently not today.

I saw two cane toads today. One was right in the middle of path, like a sentry blocking the way. It looked like a rock and I didn't even realise until I was right near it. Cane toads are a terrible pest in the north of Queensland, this was actually the first time I've seen one up close. Soon after one jumped right over my foot. Unfortunately I don't have any cool stories about doing a double-round-the-world with it, then giving it a big boot into the boosh, I simply continued along my way, and hoped I wouldn't see anymore.

Early on I encountered a brush turkey. These animals are around a fair bit in the area, they also look incredibly stupid. I began my day at a running pace, I didn't think the lookout was quite so far, I'd just seen a vague map, and thought it would be a nice run. After a while, the path was getting too slippery and I knew I still had a long way to go, so I slowed to a walk. Before this, I came through a bit of a curvy section, where I first met the turkey. At first it was like he was trying to run out of my way, but then it would stop, then I would almost catch up, it would take off again, almost like it was leading me along some kind of path. I started thinking it was really strange before the turkey veered off down the hill.

On coming back from the walk I had a quick footbag session. Training under fatigue is something that people do to train in a lot of sports, and I was fairly fatigued. Too fatigued it seemed, I had a few runs, with some fun tricks, then just tried to hit a fun sick 3 link-> phoenix>blur>paradon. I hit it on my second try.

On arriving back at the hostel, I went straight into the pool. I achieved another goal I have been reaching for in recent times, swimming 3 laps of the pool underwater. The pool would be less than ten metres long, but it's just a little something I've been aiming for, and now I've done it so I'm pleased with myself.

The photo at the top is from my first couple of days in Airlie Beach, the view from along the track in the woodland sections is quite similar to that, in parts looking further down the coast, then in the other direction at Abel Point and Canonvale. The day I took this photo I got a bit lost looking for the track, I was well off the mark in my search location, but in the early hours of this morning I was right in the money.

Just a few days left before I begin an actual holiday, tomorrow I have the day off work, I'm heading out on a kayak tour, should be awesome. I've been able to do some pretty incredible stuff up here.