Are we there yet

Saturday saw us complete the first leg of the Wild Endurance track = 26.5km. We got off to an EARLY start (5am) and commenced the 3hr drive to Dunphy's Campground...no idea how our small car made it through the bumpy, unsealed road but it did.
Emer was nice enough to volunteer to spend her day in lovely Katoomba waiting for our call so we could be picked up at the end.

Some parts of this leg are pretty difficult, scrambling up Mount Debert certainly wasn't fun and neither was Tarros Ladder...who calls this is a ladder??? The view once you climb Tarros Ladder is absolutely amazing and well worth the effort.
We saw some wildlife along the way - huge goanna, small snake, leeches, leeches, leeches and of course....a wasp.

Overall the 30km walk (we got lost a little hence the additional 3.5km) took us around 8.5hrs. Still a lot of room for improvement but we also have a lot of time before the event and i think we should be more than happy with our current training schedule and fitness levels.

Nah seriously stay on the right track!

Got a little lost yesterday doing the Heathcote to Engadine via Audley walk and ventured into leach-vaille as our "team leader" Nath lost the map in the first 30min of the walk. After about 45mins of VERY thick bush and half a dozen leech removals (i was nearly in tears), we decided that the track just doesn't feel right and it might be best to turn around and see if we missed a turn-off somewhere. we did.

This walk is pretty good, several nice, high viewing points and seeing the river at Audley as you make it down the cliff is a great scene.

lessons learnt:

1-Don't give maps to men

2-if you don't like leeches sucking your blood, carry a lighter or a vineger spray to burn them, and DO NOT follow the river.

3-if you get distracted by steep hills and huge ants wear a helmet while bush walking or you'll hit your head with a branch!!

4- watch out for wasps as they like to bite in awkward places!

OK so we're a few weeks into our training sessions. We've done the Manly to Spit Bridge (return) the last 2 weeks, one of which was in the rain, and this weekend will see us complete a 30Km trek through the Royal National Park.

Our aim is to do a 40Km Saturday followed by another 40Km on the sunday. We're still a month or two away from attempting the double header but i'm sure we'll kill it.

We are taking part in the 2010 WildEndurance event and will be completing a 100km trek through the Blue Mountains to raise funds for the The Wilderness Society.

The Wilderness Society (TWS) is a national, community-based, environmental advocacy organisation whose purpose is to protect, promote and restore wilderness and natural processes across Australia for the survival and ongoing evolution of life on Earth.

Please DONATE by clicking on the button to the right and help The Wilderness Society continue their work to protect the wildnerness for all of us and  future generations.