Oxfam 100km Trailwalk 2013

On the weekend of 14 to 16 June 2013, I am taking on the challenge of walking 100km nonstop together with my fellow team members (Ryan, Eve and Michael). The walk is part of the Oxfam Trailwalker series which is held in various cities around Australia to raise funds for the good work of Oxfam around the world.

The walk takes place in the D’Aguilar National Park which is located just West of Brisbane. Brisbane is most fortunate to have this wonderful National Park in its “backyard”.

After several weekends of building distance, last night we tackled the biggest training walk before the event. This was an overnight walk from Lake Manchester to Toowong (ending at my apartment). According to Garmin, this course turned out to be a distance of 58km. We completed the course in 14hrs 20min which equates to 4kph. This is pretty close to our expected event speed. Some photos of the night are shown below. There were some interesting creek crossings in the early part of the walk. Otherwise it was uneventful with no wrong turns or mishaps….other than very sore feet and a few blisters. Only 4 weeks to event day now…the anxiety levels are building…!

Mission accomplished in 26 hours 45 minutes. It was easier (on the body) than I expected. We lost Eve at 62km through fatigue. She was not well at the start so she did very well to complete 62km. Other than a few mega blisters, the guys came out the experience quite well. Thanks to our support team…Alissa, Deneille, Jenny and Karen for looking after us through the night and providing a wonderful dinner at Lake Manchester and breakfast at Bell Bird Grove. I am glad I did it but probably will not do it again certainly not in Brisbane (toughest course in Aussie Trailwalker series).

Most importantly, we managed to raise over $3000 to help people in developing countries establish a sustainable future.

Below are photos from our training walks as well as the actual event in mid June.