…it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you’re attempting can’t be done.
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites
29/12/2025:
I developed an ingrown/infected toe nail during the club Thredbo > Tharwa walk earlier in the month. Surprisingly, it wasn’t much of an impediment to hiking, but I really wanted to get it sorted and I was kinda stressing about the possibility of it interfering with Tassie. I was hitting it with all the salves and unguents in my apothecarium, with only minor improvement, and the closest podiatrist appointment I could get wasn’t until early January. I reached out to fellow walker, CBC leader and toenail collector retired podiatrist Allan Donnelly for advice, and he very generously invited me round to his place for a cup of tea, a chat, and some light surgery. After removing the offending hidden splinter of nail that was causing all the grief, I’m feeling much better, on a number of levels.
Allan and his daughter are headed down to Tassie themselves next week to hike Frenchman’s Cap and then build a canoe (as one does). In fact, you can’t throw a muesli bar in the CBC without hitting somebody who’s either just come back from hiking in Tassie or is just about to go. (Or is currently there; but your muesli-bar-throwing-arm has to be really good).
Which just leaves the small matter of oh gods time is running out and there’s still so much to do!
21/1/2026:
My left foot is really trying to sabotage this trek. A bit over a week ago I kicked the fourth toe hard on a dumbbell I’d carelessly left on the floor. Hard enough to bruise and send me to the walk-in clinic, and for them to send me for an x-ray. The x-ray came back inconclusive; possible fracture. The pain improved over a few days, and in concert with medical advice, I tested out walking on it carefully; first 2km on the flat, then 4km. I need to be doing training hikes, but I don’t need to be aggravating an injury.
I’d booked on Jen Arnold’s club walk around Lake Ginninderra (which I can walk to from home) for Friday. She cancelled it due to a forecast of squirrelly weather, but I decided to go anyway. It’s 7km around the lake, and I was keen to test out the camera on my new phone.
I was feeling good after 7km, so decided to go around a second time. Still good. I’m feeling like I might have dodged a bullet on this one. I’ll have to be more careful. I can injure my upper body as much as I like, but the feet and legs need to really be looked after or I risk scuppering the whole enterprise.
On Saturday I was going through my hiking gear; treating things with permethrin insect repellent or DWR water repellent, cleaning tarp stakes and picking grass seeds out of the velcro in my gaiters with tweezers because Tasmania has a well-founded fear of biological invasives. I couldn’t find my hammock’s tree straps anywhere. I turned the apartment upside-down. I could make a new pair in about five minutes, but these ones have a pair of little titanium hooks on the ends that are really convenient and would take weeks to re-order from the USA. I tried to think about the last time I knew for sure I’d had them.
Blue Gum Creek.
Well, I need to be doing training walks! So I drove down to the visitor centre and legged it up and over Mt Tennent’s saddle. My watch has all sorts of useful information, like time until sunset and how far you’ve walked, and how long it’s taken you. You can use these to figure out roughly whether you’ll be walking out in the dark. It doesn’t have a reminder to pack a head-torch.
To my surprise and delight, the straps were still there, hanging from the trees where I’d forgotten them a month before. I legged it back to the car and got there before the sun set. The first thing I did when I got home was add some neon green cord to the tree straps to make them more visible.
The walk was 16km and 800 vertical metres. My toe was fine. All-in-all, a successful day.
Prepping my food for 40 days took me the better part of three whole days. I’ve been slowly hoarding foodstuffs over the last six months or so whenever they’ve been on sale, and amassed an ungodly pile of them in my spare room. I embarked upon repackaging and organising everything. Here’s my food for a seven-day section:
I’ve got coffee and muesli for breakfast. I don’t really eat lunch, preferring to snack throughout the day on nut butter bars, salami sticks, and a treat (where I put a lot of effort into ensuring a wide variety so there’s something to look forward to). Then a protein bar at the end of the day to aid recovery, one of three dinners (instant mash, cheesy rice with dehydrated tuna, peas and mushrooms, or “tuna casserole”), and a hot drink of either tea or hot chocolate. The food on the right is my resupply treats to be gorged upon but not carried (many thanks to Alex and Mick for bringing metwurst back from Adelaide!). A spare day is accounted for by coffee, muesli and peanut butter; not a full day worth of food, but enough to get me through if needed. Besides; you usually know at least a few days beforehand if you’re going to need to stretch things out.
My average daily food weight is either 650g or 715g, depending on whether you count the spare day or not. The two eight-day sections weigh in at about 5.7kg. Not too bad.
I’m really hoping I don’t have any trouble getting through biosecurity at the airport. I vacuum sealed everything to ensure freshness (regular ziplock bags are air-permeable). I can recommend the vacuum sealer from Kmart. It’s a decent upgrade over the crappy eBay one I’ve had for the last few years. I’ll be curious to see whether the sniffer-beagles pick up on the food.
After packing and weighing everything, I realised I needed to pay for a third piece of checked luggage! If I was organising this thing again, I think I’d drive down. Flying is stressful (actually, flying is awesome, but airports are a pustulous blight upon civilisation) and trying to get forty days worth of food plus a hiking pack into three bags is an unnecessary pain in the arse.
Which just leaves a smattering of organisational jetsam, and some last minute panic-sewing. I’ve been stressing a bit about Tassie’s reputation for foul weather (enough to go and drop a few hundred bucks on a new pair of Mont rain pants) so I spent a day and sewed a new hammock tarp out of a more heavy-duty sil-poly than my other tarps are made of. This one provides a bit more coverage too. It weighs 430g, which is a significant penalty over the 215g of the one I took in December, but the peace of mind is worth it. I also had to sew a new shoulder pouch to accommodate the new, larger phone.
I’ve booked on a club walk up Mt Gingera for this Sunday led by Cynthia, who I largely blame for this whole mess since she suggested maybe I’d enjoy the South Coast Walk. I need to get a few other training walks in here and there as well, but mostly I’m just going over plans, trying to make sure I haven’t missed anything, and twiddling my thumbs off in nervous anticipation.
