Walking with the Aunts and friends

Today I went for a 12 km walk with my two paternal Aunts, a 1st cousin of theirs, which makes her a cousin of some sort of mine and three friends of my Aunts. It was one Aunts 75 birthday on Wednesday and my other Aunt, the cousin and two friends were over from NZ to help her celebrate. My Aunt, myself and her other friend who was on the walk all live here.  So, we drove up to Mapleton and parked down Delicia Rd at the start of the Linda Garret walk.

I was a bit horrified to read about the leeches, but due to the dry conditions, fortunately, none seemed to be around, which I was very very thankful for.

We walked the Delicia Rd Circuit.  

One of the many fallen giants. 

It ambled through bush and forest tracks and was easy walking. The bush is so peaceful to walk through, if you can get the humans to be quiet, that is. We briefly glimpsed a wallaby bounding off, scared away by the chatter of the ladies, I imagine and I saw a small snake, slither quickly away into the undergrowth - I kept quiet about that one, didn't want to scare the kiwi's too much. 



We had a brief stop for morning tea and I had a quiet chuckle to myself, as out came the "throw" to put over the log, I did wonder if the wine and cheese was going to appear next, however, it didn't, just chai latte in a thermos.

At the top of the Mary Valley 

We stopped at the Ubajee Walkers Camp for lunch and to use the composting toilet, which surprisingly, wasn't the slightest bit smelly.  The veiw from the Ubajee lookout was wonderful.


From there we wound our way down the track to the bottom of the valley, which my Aunt tells is the Mary Valley and I'm not going to argue with her.  The below sign gave us a bit of a giggle, however we all told the sign we were experienced so it was ok for us to keep walking.

Going down was good, however, with every downhill, there is usually an uphill and we weren't disappointed. Up, up, up we went. 

Here they come, up, up, the track towards the road.

Half way up the climb to the road, we decided myself and one of my Aunts friends would walk ahead, and once we reached the road, head back to the cars and bring two of them down to pick the other 5 up. The cousin was perfectly capable of completing the walk, but two of the others were starting to feel the pain. 

The walk from the road back to the cars was 2.6 km's of gravel road going uphill. The first 1 km of the road felt like it was straight up. A man and his son stopped beside us and commented on how hard the 'going' was and said they'd stop on their way back and give us a ride to our car. Unfortunately by the time they came back we were only 30 m's from our cars, but he stopped and congratulated us on our effort - very kind of him - I think. 

Anyway, after driving down to pick up the ladies and they saw the climb back to the cars, they were very thankful they hadn't had to walk it. We retreated to a cafe in Mapleton for a cuppa and then off home. It was a lovely hot shower for me and some delightful smelling rub into my calf muscles; they were feeling that climb.

It's a good place for training for the Kokoda Challenge and I'll be back there.

2 comments family, Fitness, leisure, walking