Day 4 West Cape Howe to Denmark via Nullaki 27.1km Treated to a very pretty sky leaving WCH. I'm on a mission today as Geoff is going to meet me somewhere near Pelican Point to provide a ride into Denmark. Having a scheduled meeting always adds a little bit of stress to a days hiking, especially with our track record of getting lost, having no signal, not actually talking about the same place to meet despite both thinking it is the same place, etc, etc, etc. I also hate making time commitments as I tend not to plan how long 17km will take me to walk, to remedy this I generally give a time adding about 2 hours more than I calculate my speed to be- removes the angst... a bit. The trail from WCH to ... read more

Day 2 Mutton Bird to Torbay 12.4km What a sunrise! Short km day planned for 3 main reasons 7km of beach walking - not a huge deal but sometimes the sand is sinky and the gradient steep which makes it more laborious, and Torbay Inlet possibly impassable and requiring an approximately 18 km detour walk around I really want to have lunch at the coffee shop at Cosy Corner which is a short diversion from the track (didn't make it last time as it was at the beginning of the day and still closed!) So... up early but it was 07:35 before I left camp. This was good timing for a sunrise, breakfast and first morning packup, not going be so good for the tides with high tide at the Torbay Inlet. Took an hour of ... read more

The plan to do another end to end was born out of being restricted to travelling within the state and having 8 weeks of long service and annual leave approved. Having done an E2E in 2016 north to south I always knew I'd do a south to north at some stage, just not quite this soon. Given that I had previous experience to fall back on it was pretty easy to get this one planned. I followed the same basic principles as it generally all worked well last time. My main areas of preparation were; coming up with an itinerary (gotta love the spreadsheet), working out and producing food for 56 days (the spreadsheet gets an extra tab), deciding what to pack (yes, another tab), and training. Life had other plans though so things evolved a ... read more

Day 25 Sleeping in Rama Cool view from the hotel, we're packed and ready early. Too early for breakfast it seems. We and every other guest sit and wait very patiently for some action. And sit. And wait. It's not memorable but it's no big deal. Really looking forward to this day- the plan is to drive to Deosai National Park, up to a lofty altitude of 4114 m. It covers an area of about 3,000 km 2. It's the second highest plateau in the world after Changtang Tibetan Plateau (on the list). Whilst it's snow bound from November through May we are getting to experience autumn through the pass- (NOTE- spring is meant to be spectacular with the plateau covered in wildflowers and migrating butterflies). So off we go, once again traversing now sort of ... read more

Day 23 Sleeping in Khaplu (2601m) Tour 2- North Pakistan Adventure is to commence today. I email conversed with a few companies but ultimately went with Iman Rahim from Snow Leopard Tours in Melbourne. We went back and forth to eventually come up with an itinerary and costing that we were happy with. Bottom line- private tour for 2 for 14 days with guide, driver, all meals (bar lunch), decent car and all transport, all entry fees and accommodation for USD $1235 each. This would cover Skardu-Khaplu-Machulo Village-Deosai National Park-Rama Lake-Fairy Meadow Trek-Gilgit-Hunza-Karimabad- Ganesh Village-Hopper valley-Gulmit-Ghulkin Glacier Trek- Borith Lake-Passu-Shimshal Village-Sost -border crossing into China (Tashkurgan) .... phew! Iman was easy to deal with, we were on almost the same time zone, all of the correspondence was professional and detailed and it was easy to make ... read more