Category: All Articles

Gotland: a postcard from the lost world

Our Wanderlust 1 Comment
From the railing of a ferry, a man watches the sea below

Strong winds and heavy seas are forecast for our 90-kilometre ferry journey from mainland Sweden to the island of Gotland. In the middle of the Baltic Sea, bells ring out, the ferry slows and passengers gather on the foredeck. In fading light, the bishop of Gotland recites a poem in memory of the eighty Gotlanders lost when a Russian submarine torpedoed the civilian ferry, Hassa, 70 years ago. Ancestors of the dead cast a wreath into the grey and gravid sea. 

Visby, Gotland’s capital, is an intact medieval walled city. Its streets are gracious with muted yellow and pink gabled merchant houses. Once-magnificent churches, ransacked during the Reformation, lie in ruins.

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Walking across the high plains and into the mist

Mt Bogong, Australia

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Easter holds the promise of granite landscapes and white sandy beaches. Short walking days, languid afternoons swimming in crystal clear, turquoise water. But, like every plan made in the last 12 months, this one goes awry. This time, it’s flood damage, not the pandemic, that closes Wilsons Promontory’s walking tracks and has us scrambling for an alternative. Our walking companions, Marc & Miranda, suggest a walk in the high country. So, why not as high as possible and climb Mt Bogong, Victoria’s tallest mountain.

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The first light of day lights up the sandstone cliffs of the Wonderland Range

Grampians Peaks Loop, Australia

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The Grampians Peaks Loop beckons. After a year of confinement, the allure of wandering through wild landscapes for days on end is irrestible.

Starting at Mt Zero and extending southwards to Mt Abrupt, the yet-to-open Grampians Peaks Trail is a 160-kilometre-long walking path. As a precursor to its launch, a 35-kilometre loop walk showcases a section of the new Trail. It features some of the most spectacular scenery in the Grampians, including the Wonderland Range, the Pinnacle and Mt Rosea.

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A walker stands on a mountain silhouetted by the sunset

5 things you need to know about the Grampians Peaks Trail loop

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1. Give me an overview of the trail

This is a two-night / three-day 36.6km circuit walk that can be shortened to an overnight walk by arranging transport from Borough Huts Campground back to Halls Gap. 

(Note: the full length of the Grampians Peaks Trail, a 160km 13-day walk, is now open).

For the three-day walk, we carried 2 days’ food by having breakfast at a cafe the day we started and arrived back in Halls Gap for a late lunch on day 3. Fuel stoves must be used at Hiker camps. Water tanks are located at each camp. Parks recommends treating the water.

A line of cliffs glow red in the early morning light

Day 1: Day 1: Halls Gap to Bugiga Hikers Camp: 8.6km. A well-made track that climbs nearly 500 mostly well-graded meters. It takes in some of the most popular sights in the Grampians including the Grand Canyon and the Pinnacle, so expect plenty of day-walkers in the Wonderland Carpark to Pinnacle section. The trail marking is very good but you’ll need to pay attention when leaving the Pinnacle as there are a few tracks and not every intersection is marked.

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Silhouette of person with an umbrella & streetscape just before sunset

Walking into the Light

Our Wanderlust 24 Comments

Melbourne is in lockdown. We can only walk for an hour a day, within a five-kilometre radius of home. Once out in the world, we cannot come close to another person or stop to enjoy a coffee or a glass of wine. And we must wear a mask. The seductive aromas of coffee roasters and spice shops, the fragrance of starry clematis, sweet floral wattle and heady jasmine are lost to us. 

Touch, taste and smell, all compromised by what it takes to keep COVID-19 at bay. Light, however, is not denied to us. The blue hour, the golden hour, solar noon, the twilights. If we walk at different times of the day, perhaps we will see things in a different light and deepen our sensory experience of these strange times.  Read More

Michael posing as a Climate Guardian against a backdrop of painted angel wings

Our Isolation Camino

Our Wanderlust 14 Comments

In Australia, in this time of isolation, all travel is banned. Marooned at home, we find ourselves yearning for the long-distance paths of Spain. Alluring, elusive, unattainable. Until a challenge goes out, to walk the Camino Inglés wherever you are in the world. A spark is ignited. We decide to walk it and transition, step by step, out of our state of restless confinement. 

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Anna & Michael beside a hilltop St Cuthbert's Way way marker

St Cuthbert’s Way, UK

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Symbol of Roman soldier's helmet and St Cuthbert's Way logo on a signpostSt Cuthbert’s Way is a beautiful and intriguing walk across borders and through centuries of history that have left an indelible imprint on the landscape. 

From the ruins of a 12th-century Cistercian Abbey in Scotland, up into the atmospherically foggy Eildon Hills, alongside the green verged, swift-flowing River Tweed and on to an ancient Roman Road, St Cuthbert’s Way climbs up through beechwoods and silver birch forests to the wild, sweeping Cheviots. After crossing the border it continues on through Weetwood Moor, past St Cuthbert’s Cave, across rolling fields to the coast and, on the low tide, to the mystery-shrouded Holy Island of Lindisfarne. From Lindisfarne, you can continue on up the Northumberland Coast to Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost town in England. Read More

Close up of lighted candles in church

The Way of St James, Chemin de St Jacques, Part 3

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The final in a three-part series on walking the Way of St James. Starting in Le Puy-en-Velay, this ancient Way travels 750 km to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port where it merges with other pilgrimage routes, crosses the Pyrenees and continues a further 780 km through Spain to the holy city of Santiago de Compostela.

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Anna walking past a street-art forest scene in Decazeville

The Way of St James, Chemin de St Jacques, Part 2

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The Way of St James begins in Le Puy-en-Velay in the Haute-Loire and continues for 750 kilometres, through southern and south-western rural France to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the foothills of the Pyrenees. From here it crosses the border into Spain and continues a further 780 km (or more depending on the route chosen) to the holy city of Santiago de Compostela.

This is the second in a three-part series on walking the Way of St James. Read More