A pilgrim, red hair glowing in the morning sun, walks on the Via Francigena

Via Francigena: Walking into Tuscany

After we leave the beautiful mountains of the Alps behind, we descend through the foothills of Piedmont and enter the flatlands of the Po Valley.

For hundreds of kilometres, we walk among flooded rice paddies and follow canals, past abandoned and now derelict Cascine, farm complexes where peasant families lived and worked their entire life under the control of the farm owner.

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Silhouette of man on the Lorne beach against golden evening sky

Walking the Surf Coast, Australia

December 2021

The Surf Coast Walk stretches from Fairhaven to Point Impossible on the northern fringe of Torquay. It’s a walk we’ve done before, but this time we’re starting in Lorne, 16 kilometres to the west of the waymarked trail. Our plan is to walk 55 kilometres over two days, taking in deep draughts of coastal wildness as an antidote to this pandemic-restricted year. 

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Sun lighting up the red rocks of the Heysen Range

Walking the Heysen Trail, South Australia: Episode 1.

The Heysen Trail winds between Cape Jervis at the southern end of the Fleurieu Peninsula and Parachilna Gorge, 1,200 kilometres to the north. The trail traverses beaches, sea cliffs, national parks, rural landscapes, historic towns and the ancient, rugged peaks of South Australia’s largest mountain range. It is named for the artist Hans Heysen, renowned for his paintings of majestic gum trees and the arid, beautiful Flinders Ranges.
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New Zealand: Two Islands, Two Walks. # 1, The Heaphy Track

Aotearoa, New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud. We fly in over the rugged snow-capped southern alps to breathtaking glimpses of Mt Aspiring, Lake Tekapo, ice-blue ribbons of water and the grey scoured ghosts of long receded glaciers. A dramatically beautiful landscape. Then the wild country vanishes and in its place are the neat, green fields and hedgerows of the Canterbury Plains. We’ve come to tramp two of New Zealand’s ‘great’ walks; the five-day Heaphy Track in the north-west of the South Island and the four-day Tongariro Northern Circuit in the centre of the North Island.  
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