Hiking Australia: NEPAL - Mt Everest and Gokyo Lakes Training Locations and Photographs

TEAM NEPAL!

I thought I would put a few shots of our training walk locations. It has been fun exploring new locations and visiting some old ones, while working towards achieving a solid level of fitness before heading to Nepal. These are not in order!

Warrandyte State Park has been a good location for us. Just 10 minutes from home and a circuit that can be varied depending on our training requirements. Mt lofty is a circuit track of around 5kms, but there are three sidetracks that climb to the top track of around 400m each. Overall we did each side track on our walk which pushed the distance out to 6.5 to 7kms and an altitude gain of 200 to 250m. The map shows a typical circuit.

Overall, the track was just a training walk, we completed it several times before we went looking for new areas to explore.

Heritage Golf Club from Mt Lofty - Warrandyte State Park.

A little damp on the top of the
North Jawbone - Cathedral Ranges

Cathedral Ranges was our training ground for our Tasmanian Overland Track walk in 2013.

On an impromptu Saturday afternoon we decided to pack light and head to the Farmyard Saddle for the night, finishing with the walk along the ridge the next day. The weather report was for clearing weather... Yeh, right! On arrival the weather set in and we decided to remove some of our gear from our packs and do the North Jawbone walk. We further developed the plan to include returning home to a bottle of wine and a spa! The photo was taken with Andrea's new waterproof, shockproof, foolproof camera!

Super moon over Halls Gap

The Grampians is another favourite location and over the years we have spent plenty of time exploring the area. It never gets old and I wish it was a little closer to Melbourne! There are walks dispersed throughout the park. On this particular weekend we covered 28km of walking trails that we measured. We completed several other short walks, plus a couple of bike rides. Unfortunately, several of the best walks were closed due to the previous summer fires. Next time!

View from the road up to Mt William - Grampians NP

Kalymna Falls

Turret Falls

Another damp walk to the Pinnacle - Over looking
Halls Gap. Or in our case looking into clouds!

Waterfall on the walk from
Wonderland to Halls Gap

In the last month we spent exploring the Dandenong Ranges National Park and the various walking tracks in that area. There are options from the steep but relatively short climb up the fire trail to the longer less intense climb on the tracks through Doongalla Reserve. Plenty to explore and delightful for early morning training. We hope to continue to do the walks through the area to maintain our fitness for the possible return to The Overland Track early 2015.

Taken on one of the side tracks through Doongalla Reserve. (iPhone 5c)

View from Burkes Lookout. Melbourne in the distance.

Somewhere in the Park!

Liz and Andrea on the Fire Trail.

Wilsons Prom was an early destination in our training and the weather turned out to be a little on the wild side! But, it is an awesome place to walk and we completed the Sealers Cove, Little Waterloo Circuit. We spent nearly 12 hours in the tent at Waterloo as it bucketed down the entire time!

Sealers Cove

Walking into Refuge Cove

Last, but definitely not least the start of our training kicked off in Mt Kosciuszko National Park. We met Liz and Richard in Jindabyne for a Friday night steak and red wine session and followed up with a walk around the top of Australia! We intended to camp out halfway but the weather was diabolical. We returned down the hill to a sheltered campsite for the night then completed the 20km circuit the following day. I have added the video for reference, judge for yourself, should we have turned back?