Backpackermatt

Between the years 122 and 128AD the Roman Emperor Hadrian had a stone wall up to four metres high built across the narrowest part of Great Britain (in what today are the English counties of Cumbria and Northumberland) from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, delineating the northernmost extent of the Roman Empire. Nowadays there exists both a walking trail and a bicycle route that follow the surviving sections of Hadrian's Wall, with the cycle route being one of three that cross the country roughly parallel to each other (Hadrian's Cycleway, the Rievers Route and - by far the most popular - the Coast2Coast). Having run out of time in Western Europe due to the 90-day Schengen limitation, but with three weeks left before my flight back to Australia and a desire to tackle some ... read more

For the grand finale of my Alpine summer, there could only be one choice: the Tour du Mont Blanc. Stretching for around 170km (depending on which variants are followed) through three countries while circumnavigating the highest mountain in Western Europe, the route is one of the most famous multi-day walks in the world. Most people start and finish in the small town of Les Houches (7km down-valley from Chamonix) and take around 11 days, following the circuit anti-clockwise so as to finish along the Grand Balcon Sud - a high belvedere path following the northern flank of the Arve (Chamonix) Valley (through the mountains of the Aiguilles Rouge) offering endless views of needle-sharp peaks separated by the icy tongues of numerous glaciers, while heading straight towards the highest peak of them all. A wide array of ... read more

Leaving the Rifugio Nuvolau on my fifth day on the Alta Via 1, there was a choice of onward route - either backtracking downhill to the Rifugio Averau and contouring around the base of the mountain, or dropping straight down the southern face of the mountain on a Via Ferrata route. With a full pack on my back the former seemed to be the only smart choice. With the cable cars having not yet started running for the day, the walk down was both scenic and peaceful... until I reached the road crossing at Passo Giau to be confronted by hordes of day-trippers starting out on their own hikes. But the scrum was soon left behind as I continued on the south side of the road (which seemed to attract only a fraction of the people ... read more

A couple of hours to the southeast of Innsbruck lies Hohe Tauern NP - the largest protected area in the Eastern Alps. Many of Austria's highest peaks rise amongst this mountainous wonderland, including the country's highest, the Grossglockner (3798m), and its fourth-highest, the Grossvenediger (3660m). Though I harbour no interest whatsoever in scaling any such ice-clad peaks, my passion for wandering amongst lofty mountains combined with my newfound love for staying in alpine huts had found a perfect outlet in the form of the Venediger Höhenweg: a 5-6 day hut-to-hut walk curving around the southeastern slopes of the mighty mountain. Unfortunately, though the weather forecast was predicting mostly sunny weather for the Saturday, Monday and Wednesday (my first, third and fifth days on the trail), the same could not be said for the Sunday and Tuesday ... read more

Fresh from my four-day tour of the Watzmann in the Bavarian Alps, two nights each in Salzburg and Innsbruck were all it took to have me itching to get back into the mountains, and less than an hour's bus ride south of Innsbruck lay the perfect place to do so: the Stubai Alps. This time I would need to carry something a little more substantial than a day-pack, as I had lined up eight consecutive nights at a string of mountain huts located along the Stubaier Höhenweg (High-level Route). A circular route measuring roughly 80km, it starts and finishes in the town of Neustift in the Stubai Valley, climbing straight up one side of the valley and then remaining high up in the mountains (above 2000m) for over a week, as it circumnavigates the Stubaital - ... read more