Distance: 21kmElevation: +1100mTime: 9:15Total Distance: 640km Music: Eivør – Trøllabundin Madness takes its toll… Riffraff The forecast suggests some light drizzle to keep me cool during this morning’s climb, then nothing until the day after I finish. There are lots of things that can end a walk; bushfires, floods, shelter-shredding hail storms, soaking wet down insulation, hypothermia…...

Distance: 20kmElevation: +500mTime: 7:00Total Distance: 619km Music: Heilung – Anoana I looked back and saw, in my time of greatest hardship, only one set of footprints in the sand. I asked the Lord, why? The Lord replied: The sand people walk in single file to conceal their number. The wind dies away through the night, just as the forecast said it would. I’ve used The Garmin InReach...

Distance: 17kmElevation: 500m?Time: 6:00Total Distance: 599km Music: Heilung – Norupo Some walkers have complained to me that the South Coast Track is not easy – I agree but for the region it is the ‘easiest’ walk – all the other walks in the park except the southern half of South West Cape are considerably harder. If I graded the South Coast Track as say Medium-Hard then how...

Distance: 25kmElevation: +1200 to +1800m depending who you believeTime: 9:20Total Distance: 582kmMusic: Nina Gordon – The End of the World [meaning deep SW Tasmania] I hike to burn off the crazy. Anon I leave my camp set up and start walking just as the sun rises above the bay. The beauty of it feels precious and somehow fragile. The track takes a long curve inland, up and over to Ketchem...

Distance: 17kmElevation: +400mTime: 6:00Total Distance: 557km Music: Wardruna – Helvegen Round here nothing changes,Not in a hurry anyway.You can feel the endlessnessLike the coming of the light of day Goanna – Solid Rock I take my time having breakfast and packing up. I manage to offload the few bits of spare food I was unable to eat yesterday to Liz and Monica, and the caretakers...

Distance: To the Internet shed and backElevation: 15m aslTime: all dayTotal Distance: 540km You quoted Ellen DeGeneres?!? Shelle With the hut to myself, I’m able to string the hammock up inside and have a pleasant night out of the rain. I’m not expecting this to continue; with flights grounded for the rain , any hikers coming in today will have to sit out the weather. My luck with having shelters...

Distance: 21kmTime: 7:45Total Distance: 540km Music: The Be Good Tanyas – Out of the Wilderness If you can force your every nerve and sinewTo serve their turn long after they are doneAnd still go on when there is nothing in youExcept the will which says to them, ‘go on’. Rudyard Kipling – If I wake naturally before the dawn, worrying about the boat crossing. Wind and tide can make it...

Distance: 23kmElevation: +700mTime: 8:15Total Distance: 519km Scoparia, scoparia;Nothing could be scarier!I wish my legs were hairierWhen walking through scoparia. Linda Groom A wallaby scampers around camp as I wake up. The birds are chirping. It’s going to be a warm day, and I suspect another tough one. Straight out of camp, it’s mud and dense trackside scrub wet with the morning dew. But then...

Distance: 22kmElevation: +500mTime: 8:00Total Distance: 496km Music: Heilung – Nesso Hiking is not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty. Sonja Yoerg A cold morning. My watch claims a low of 4°, 7° at time of writing, but it feels colder. There was scampering last night, and tiny hopping. Perhaps bettongs? Maybe a quoll? The Port Davey track is shrouded in mystery. Some say...

Distance: 28kmElevation: +400mTime: 8:30Total Distance: 474km Music: Heather Nova – Rewild Me [again] Rewild my heart, let me findMy animal parts, the divine. Heather Nova – Rewild Me I wake in the night to the sound of scampering. I lean out of the hammock, ready to smack a possum on the nose, but instead I see a gorgeous little Eastern quoll! It’s gone by the time I get my phone out...

Distance: 13kmElevation: +700m -1300mTime: 7:45Total Distance: 446km Abels: Mt Anne (Total: 9)Music: Darkher – Hung When the wind whips through the skyBlow the land across my eyeThe map is not the territoryThe map is not the territory Ego Likeness I awake in a sea of cloud. No point walking in this, so I make my breakfast and coffee and settle in to wait for it to lift. I sit and read until...

Distance: 14kmElevation: +800mTime: 4:20Total Distance: 433km Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes. I wake to a cold morning. Feels colder than the 5° my watch tells me it is. The quarry is filled with fog and birdsong. I only have fourteen fairly easy kilometres to walk today. I take my sweet time getting...