Athlete
I get goosebumps every time I go to Bright. Bright is home of the Buffalo Stampede, Bright 4 Peaks and Spartan Bright Trifecta weekend, and not far from the start of the Great Southern Endurance Run and the Wandi Cross. My favourite Australian mountain, Mt …
Finally I got to race at Mt Buller! I entered the 22km race in 2020 but that was cancelled. I also visited Mt Buller for training and van life in December 2019. So I was pretty excited to do this race which would make it …
What: True Grit 24 Hour Enduro Aussie Titles – complete as many laps of the 11km 30 obstacle course as possible in 24 hours
When: 2pm 6 March 2021 to 2pm 7 March 2021. Note this is a much warmer time of the year than usual. Usually Enduro is held in the middle of winter and has often been cold and wet, requiring competitors to wear wetsuits overnight to stay warm.
Where: Dargle Farm, Lower Portland, Hawkesbury region
Categories: Individual (with Age Groups 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50+), team relay 2 person, team relay 4 person.
Read race preview for women’s field here.
Wide open grasslands reflect heat back at you and can get very hot, luckily temperatures topped out at 28 degrees
Robyn covering the last obstacles before finishing her final lap.
Race wrap up
I arrived at Dargle Farm at 10:30am on the Sunday with three and a half hours to go until the 24 hour race ended. I felt like living death having raced the Australian Alpine Ascent on Saturday, driven from Charlotte Pass back to Canberra and then left Canberra at 6am on Sunday to drive for 4 hours to the Hawkesbury. But the athletes still moving around the course made me feel super fresh in comparison.
The festival area had chilled, summer camp vibes, with a tent city set up at the finish line. By 10:30am most individual athletes were trying to get back in time to start and complete another lap before the 2pm deadline. The course is the same as the 10km True Grit race (which I have done before), with a few of the obstacles altered slightly (the sandbag carry was on a flat piece of ground rather than up a hill). Overall the obstacles are more military style, with minimal technical rigs (if any). Obstacles include walls, barbed wire torsion bar crawl, ammo carry, tunnels, rope climbs, river rope traverse, monkey bars and dam swim. Competitors were all soaked in mud up to chest height which indicated there was quite a lot of mud in the dam. Conditions were dry (except overnight there would have been dew), warm and fast.
On my way to tent city I bumped into Steve Johnston who broke a couple of ribs the weekend before, but still had a good go at Enduro, including a lap late in the night with his daughter Emma Johnston who is currently studying year 12 and was competing in a two person team. I then went to find Robyn’s husband Adi and her parents who had crewed for Robyn throughout the night and only had a couple of hours to get through. Robyn had just finished her 10th lap and was out on her 11th lap. While getting the update on Robyn’s progress I saw Matt Moore pass through tent city to start a lap wearing budgie smugglers and a legionnaire hat. I am not sure how he managed to do a whole lap in that attire! All I can think about is the chaffing. Sometimes it is good just to have a bit more fabric.
I also saw Tom Bleasedale leaving for his last lap (he came second male overall). Tom looked surprisingly fresh (as fresh as you can when coated in mud) and is a real endurance machine. Nikki Sorrell (who completed 8 laps and 88km) also passed through tent city on the way to start her final lap, though she was fairly focused on getting it done so I didn’t interrupt. I learned that Hannalise had to pull out of the race at about 4am due to being too cold after putting in a fantastic effort. Jasmine Sparkes was on track to be in the top 5 females too.
We moved to the small hill which was a perfect viewing platform to wait for Robyn to pass through. By now many of the solo competitors were doing the 10 burpee penalty instead of completing obstacles. Jim Bullard passed by, completing the Enduro in a 30kg weight vest.
Robyn completing the monkey bars and rope traverse on her last lap (she had a burpee free race)
There was a stark contrast between the individual and team competitors. Over the 24 hour period competitors in the top 4 person teams complete 4-5 laps each, with hours of rest between, enabling a much faster pace on the course. At the 22hour mark, the contrast with the solo competitors could not have been greater. There was also a hot competition between the top 4 person teams. Laura Newton’s mixed gender team ‘Unsung Enduros’ were clearly in the lead but the all-female SORTS Warriors were challenging for second (in the end coming a super impressive third place). I am a bit confused as to whether there are separate team categories for male/female/mixed, but SORTS Warriors came third outright, and won the female 4 person teams category (if there was one).
Eventually Robyn came through. I was unsure if she would be too delirious to recognise me, but on jogging down to the rope climb to be closer, it was clear that she knew exactly who I was. I asked if she would do burpees or complete the obstacles and she informed me she had done no burpees and was going to complete every obstacle on the course. Very much still sane. I watched Robyn do the rope climb, monkey bars and log river crossing before she left to do the single trail bush loop out of sight. After what was a much shorter time than expected Robyn emerged from the bush to do the barbed wire torsion bar crawl and medium wall, running the whole time (despite having covered 120km). She powered across the rope traverse and through the rings and then over the last obstacles to cross the line. She finished with an impressive 11 laps and no burpees. While waiting for the presentations I asked Robyn about how it went. She said she started strong and did well until lap 8 which was difficult but then picked up after that. She mainly fuelled herself with gels and chews (trialled beforehand) with some but not much solid food every 4hrs or so (half a packet of noodles prepared by hubby Adi). She also changed socks several times and singlet once, but wore the same pair of shoes and tights the whole race.
While I got to see Robyn, I unfortunately didn’t spot Jacki Richardson or Eve Birch (2nd and 3rd females) out on the course. But Jacki is in the 40-49 age group and Eve is in the 50+ age group, so this just shows how older athletes tend to dominate the field in endurance events. Awesome work ladies! I also got to see Linda Dent and Toby (her border collie) from a distance. I hadn’t expected Linda to be there, so that was a nice surprise.
Great work to everyone who raced at 24 hour Enduro in 2021.
Results
Top 5 females
1. Robyn Koszta 11 laps 121km
2. Jacki Richardson 10 laps 100km
3. Eve Birch 10 laps 110km
4. Pauline Decoster 10 laps
5. Jasmine Sparkes 10 laps
Top 5 males
1. Jamie Hunter 14 laps 154km
2. Tom Bleasedale 12 laps 132km
3. Benjamin Bowes 12 laps
4. Joel Murcia 12 laps
5. Ashley Finnigan 11 laps 121km
Team of four
1. Unsung Enduros – Paul Clark, Pete Wand, Laura Newton, Jess Bujeya 17 laps 187km
2. LFB 2 – Ryan Kamenic, Brandon Foster, AJ Blancaver, Reece Parker 17 laps 187km
3. SORTS Warriors – Kate Hobbs, Tetiana Drahonchuk, Rowena Macneish, Ulyana Lisovyk 16 laps 176km
Team of two
1. The Kookaburras – Lonnie Stone, Tom Redden 14 laps 154km
2. Dirtyfoot – Peter Tabb, Craig Hall 14 laps 154km
3. Team P P – Paul Vermay, Peter Muldoon 11 laps 121km
Robyn completing slip wall and rope climb on Lap 11 (her last lap).
The Australian Alpine Ascent (AAA) is Australia’s highest race. Starting at Charlotte Pass and completing a loop of Main Range and Mt Kosciusko Summit, the race offers altitude (1,700-2,200m above sea level), alpine scenery and an unmatched opportunity to race through 25.7km of Kosciusko National …
*Photo is from True Grit 10km 2019. I have never competed in the Enduro and so this is the most relevant photo I have. With three sleeps to go until the 24hr Enduro Aussie Titles (Enduro) kick off in Lower Portland NSW, it is …
This is a difficult ‘year in review’ to write. 2020 was so different to normal. Throughout the year I started writing about issues I was facing (injury, moving interstate, mental health issues) and not coming back to finish. Instead, I wrote about the easy things (race recaps) and left the difficult issues hanging. This year in review is about those difficult unfinished things.
Passive reaction does not end well
The wild fires of summer 2019-20 produced enormous amounts of bushfire smoke. Canberra is in a basin surrounded by the mountains of Namadgi NP and the Brindabellas. The smoke would settle right into this basin and only be cleared by a coastal breeze. That was in December 2019. By New Year with the the Dodds Rd fire was causing significant bush fire smoke, there was no wind direction that did not carry smoke into the Canberra basin. The smoke was so thick that at some points it looked like night time in the middle of the day. I returned to work on Monday 3 January. By this point I was feeling really sick and dizzy. There were no N2 masks available to buy in Canberra and the granny flat I was renting just let the smoke pour in. I could stand in the bedroom and see the smoke haze in the kitchen a couple of metres away. Cycling to work visibility was poor like it was a bad winter fog. There was even smoke on the floor at work. I just had nowhere to go to escape the smoke. By Wednesday I was so sick I could not stop vomiting from the nausea and couldn’t sit upright for more than a few seconds. I saw a doctor who said I could likely feel this nausea until the smoke cleared. I returned to Adelaide where the air quality was comparatively excellent despite the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island fires. I felt immediately better and worked from the Adelaide office for two weeks.
This was a passive reaction on my part that could have been completely avoided. I had told myself numerous times I would move to a better rental that had heating for winter and was not a furnace in summer. The place I was renting had holes in the bricks and the door and window frames were not air tight, meaning that any bushfire smoke just flowed straight inside. I had been holding over on my lease since September 2020, so could have easily moved many times. I would go away every weekend to get away from my housing situation and then told myself next weekend I would spend the time looking for houses. It never happened. If I had found a new place to live instead of actively avoiding this necessity I would have completely avoided being sick for much of January.
The guilt of being lucky
At the end of March 2020, when the first lockdown started, I moved back to my parents’ house in Adelaide and completed two weeks of quarantine. I worked remotely for the first time in my life. I was super lucky because if I had stayed in Canberra I would have been by myself for months. At work I felt like there was no leeway to ask for any support or changes to accommodate the increased workload (due to advising on COVID-19 related legal matters on top of normal workload). I was lucky to have a job. This was not the time to ask for a break after a hectic 12 months. This guilt and my subsequent refusal to ask for help really backfired on me when I later burned out.
I also felt guilty about how I was coping well without races. I mainly train for my mental and physical health and racing is a shiny add on which is entirely optional. Even in November when Queensland closed its borders to SA a couple of days before the Gold Coast Spartan event, I only felt disappointed for a short time. As I watched a lot of other people struggle with the cancelled races I wondered why I didn’t feel the same. Was there something wrong with me? Did this mean I actually don’t care about racing? Why did I even race? Eventually I identified that I love racing because I like to see how far I can go and I love competition. Sure there are social aspects of racing but social needs can be met in other ways. My reasons for training are largely separate from my reasons for racing and I realised that it is ok that my reasons for training are different to others. But it did not stop me from feeling guilty about being completely ok and motivated to train without races. A strange thing to feel guilty about, but another item on my long list of things to feel guilty about.
There is no ‘good time’ to be injured
In January I injured the plantar fascia in my left foot. Initially it was diagnosed as big toe flexor tendon irritation but by late January I had the correct diagnosis. This meant that my preparation for the Spartan Beast in Oberon was really compromised. Getting this injury off the back of a patella femoral knee injury in 2019 was tough. Racing at Oberon worsened the plantar fasciitis. In Adelaide I saw a third physio (in Canberra I had seen two physios that had different diagnosis and different treatment plans) who prescribed a four week plyometric strengthening program. I did a lot of trail running in Adelaide and combined with the plyometric strength, the plantar fasciitis got worse and worse. By this stage I was in tears every single morning because the pain on putting my feet on the ground was so severe, and it was difficult to fall asleep at night because of the throbbing. I went back to the physio, involved a podiatrist and then it very gradually healed. By mid June the pain was manageable. By then I had spent countless hours on a bike and so many sessions feeling dizzy from the heat and chlorine in a 25m indoor pool. In mid-June I got plantar fasciitis in my left foot, and so started another six months of pain, rehab exercises and treatment. The exercises took 30-45mins a day and I had been doing variations all year. The new injury was crushing as realistically it meant I would spend a whole 12 months injured. As with the first foot, there were many times that I cried mid run from the pain (all professionals were adamant I could continue running as this would not slow the healing). In September I tried radial shockwave therapy that seemed to work so that I could be in manageable pain when I went to Queensland on annual leave. Six months later in December 2020 my right foot has finally healed, concluding twelve months of injury.
This injury was so hard to deal with during COVID-19. There were weeks where due to COVID-19 I could not see the physio, not get MRIs or ultrasounds, and not have access to cross training. There was the stress of the injury on top of an already stressful year. Well meaning people kept telling me it is a ‘good time’ to be injured because I am not missing any races. There is no good time to be injured. The worst time to be injured is when you are already under psychological strain from other sources. I would not wish plantar fasciitis on anyone, especially during lockdown during a global pandemic. Although I had the injury in each foot for 6 months, this apparently is a quick recovery time and many people suffer from the pain for 1-3 years. If you get plantar fasciitis I would make sure you have the support of medical professionals that you trust and get a diagnosis as early as possible. I have included this in my year in review because the injury really pushed me over the edge in terms of negatively effecting my mental health. I was doing everything I could, including the strength and rehab exercises every single day and for months at a time there was little to no improvement. It took an insanely long time for the pain to end and I was so drained by the time the pain started improving it was difficult to be happy about it.
Turning it around
The start of 2020 was fairly brutal and so I was holding out for slightly more certainty before making any more concrete plans. Once there was more certainty I would then leave the holding pattern I was in and resume normality. However, by July 2020, after my second plantar fasciitis diagnosis, I finally realised I had to do something to salvage my mental health now, because it really did not look like there was certainty coming in the near future. By this point I had expected to have moved back to Canberra many times. Three times I had booked flights and three times the flights had been cancelled due to border closures.
I started with focusing on controlling what I could. This is my usual default setting but after making plans, making second and third plans and having all of those plans cancelled over and over again in 2020 it had worn me down. Once I got on a roll it turned out I could control a lot of things. At work, the circumstances of 2020 meant I had to rapidly learn whole areas of law I had never practised, including work health and safety and workers compensation. The increased workload and working from home meant I was working much longer hours than I normally would. I started a pre-work routine where I would walk around the block and back home to ‘commute’ to work and then started my day and made better efforts to end my day on time. I then packed up my laptop into a drawer and shut it out the way.
In addition to implementing strategies to manage work fatigue I scheduled things and let myself look forward to them despite the risk they would be cancelled. Hope is a powerful. I organised a trip to Queensland in September, despite the risk the border would not be open. I booked another flight to Canberra (despite the likelihood it would be cancelled again). I organised a trip to Kangaroo Island national parks with my sister for my birthday.
I also regained what I could of my independence. I went from a very solo and mobile life with adventures in national parks every weekend to being largely confined to my parents house. Occasionally I could use the shared car, but even once organised, Mum could take off with the car at any moment, forgetting about my ‘booking’. I was already using the mountain bike for getting around Cleland CP but I then arranged to borrow a bike for cycling to and from the pool and getting to other places. One of my awesome friends in Adelaide also loaned me her road bike so I had more options for cross training with my plantar fasciitis injury. I went back to the Adelaide office as soon as it opened and commuted by bike. When my parents went away (to hike the Larapinta trail) I went on a weekend trip to a national park. All of these steps, although small, helped improve my mental health and restore some normality. It did help that by October my plantar fasciitis had significantly improved and I had been fortunate to race again (in Queensland and Adelaide), but it was largely the other steps I took to manage fatigue, schedule things to look forward to, and regain independence that helped me feel like I was now facing the obstacles and ready for more.
Facing the obstacles
In 2021 I am going focus on meeting the obstacles head on. I am not trying to ‘go back’ to what I had before COVID-19. The events this year have given me an opportunity to question everything, including choices about work, racing and relationships. I am not going to occupy spaces I have outgrown. I hope that you too can stop and think before rushing back to what you had before. Through all the unexpected in 2020 you have evolved more than you realise and are more capable than you realise to meet the obstacles in 2021.
6 December 2020 Just a fortnight ago Adelaide was in lockdown. The Queensland borders closed so I could not attend the Spartan trifecta weekend on the Gold Coast, an event I had been preparing for since September. My back up event, True Grit in Adelaide …
Finally this was my return to racing the longer distance in the Trail Running SA Series. I can now run downhill at race pace without my plantar fasciitis making it excruciating. I injured my right foot on the 13 June 2020 so this has been …
Henrietta Creek Campground Carpark, Wooroonooran NP, Queensland
I am standing next to my hire van having just finished a run to Nandroya Falls. A car pulls up and a lady steps out. She has long curly black hair and unusual tattoos visible on her arms and neck. On closer inspection I see they are all star constellations and I am pretty sure I can identify scorpio. She looks very dangerous and mysterious. I try to pretend I am not interested in her and step inside my van but she starts a conversation anyway.
Tattoo lady: Have you been running?
Me: Yes just around to some of the waterfalls.
Tattoo lady: Are you by yourself?
Me: Yes, I was running by myself.
Tattoo lady: I mean, are you travelling alone?
Me: Yes, I am travelling alone.
Tattoo lady: What star sign are you?
Me: I am fairly sure I am a Leo.
Tattoo lady: That is why you are alone.
Okayyyyyyyy. Luckily at that moment her partner told her to hurry up with the toilet stop and she left me in peace. I can tell you now there are multiple reasons why I was travelling and adventuring alone and not one of those reasons was because my star sign is Leo.
Henrietta Falls Campground carpark where I tried to get a picture of tattoo lady from my van.
Nandroya Falls, Wooroonooran NP
Why go on solo adventures?
There are both practical reasons and other reasons why I go on solo adventures. Practically, it is not always possible to organise to go on an adventure with others. Your annual leave might not overlap with others. Your friends might all have children who have sports carnivals the day you are going on your adventure. Your friends might simply not be interested in going up a mountain. It might be a choice between going solo or not going at all. In my early 20s I would spend more time on group adventures, especially when kayaking or doing water sports and I would only do small solo trips like doing the Spit to Manly trail run by myself. I would not have gone on weekend adventures by myself or considered a solo holiday and I definitely would not have gone anywhere out of phone range by myself. When I started trail running in 2017 I did most of my runs in groups through social runs organised by Trail Running SA. However, my confidence soon grew and I was running solo around national parks, mainly Cleland CP to get in enough kilometres each week.
When I moved to Canberra in 2018 was when I really started doing solo adventures. Namadgi NP and the Brindabellas are very close to Canberra. These mountains are mainly in wilderness areas and mostly with no phone reception, so I had to learn very quickly how to go on solo adventures safely, especially given I had just moved interstate and did not have a massive pool of friends to draw on. Since then I have been a convert to solo adventures.
The main reason I love solo adventures is how much they have developed my confidence and improved the way I talk to myself. As a flow on effect, this has helped me enhance the way I talk to others. If you are starting to panic, are lost, have heat illness or are so cold you can’t feel any of your limbs, the only way out of the situation is to rely on yourself (or use your PLB). Negative self-talk does not get you very far in these situations. Enduring these discomfort and being forced to be self-reliant also builds resilience. I also find the experience with solo adventures helps me in race situations. Usually when something goes wrong in a race whether it be a navigational error or the weather, I have endured that before usually in worse circumstances where there is not a race director and medical team to watch out for you. As a result whenever I am racing I feel so safe.
I was in Queensland on a holiday by myself because I only had annual leave approved at quite short notice and with the South Australian government threatening closure of the border to Queensland every few days I was quite convinced the trip would not happen. I booked my flights a week and hire van four days before I left. I planned my trip to minimise potential exposure to covid, and that included spending most of the time in national parks in a van rather than staying in urban centres in hostels, hotels or airbnbs. Even if I could arrange for a friend to come along, they probably would not be happy to spend so much time out of civilisation.
I had four adventures I wanted to do on this trip to tropical Far North Queensland:
1. Mt Bartle Frere
2. Mt Halifax
3. Hitchinbrook Island traverse
4. Walsh’s Pyramid
This was more a wishlist and in the end I did not do get to Hitchinbrook Island. The Hitchinbrook track is 31km long and usually hiked over 3 days. It does not go over the mountainous ridge on the island, but is still technical single trail and involves several kilometres of boulder hopping along the beaches and some climbing next to waterfalls. Logistically you need to plan very carefully for Hitchinbrook, as it involves getting a private charter from Cardwell to be dropped off on one side of the island and then organising a charter to be picked up from Lucinda. Both the drop off and pick up points are on mangrove flats frequented by crocodiles and there are a couple of river crossings that need to be done at low tide for croc safety. The boat trip alone would have cost $250-$300 so I left this adventure for another day. To be honest even if I was in the area again, Hitchinbrook would not be my top priority as there are plenty of mountains on mainland I still would like to explore. I also did not get to climb Walsh’s Pyramid closer to Cairns as I decided to run a loop in Barron Gorge National Park instead, and I do not regret that choice as it was fun running in techty rainforest a final time. I also did the Cape Pallarenda trail race half way through my fortnight in Queensland, which took a few days out afterwards to recover from.
Mt Bartle Frere
Mt Bartle Frere is Queensland’s highest mountain at 1,622m above sea level. It does not sound very high, but the hike starts at only 100m above sea level so the ascent has 1,400m of vert in 7.5km. This is one of the steepest ascents up a mountain in Australia and is definitely one of the most technical mountains I have run up with roots, rocks and technical single trail. The peak is almost perpetually shrouded in cloud with views only 15-30 days a year. Even if you are lucky to get a dry day with views on the way up, the summit itself has no views due to the heights of the surrounding rainforest. The last section of track up to the summit is a near vertical crawl up a creek bed with exposed roots, so it is a fairly humbling experience even when you finally make it. I went on a drizzly wet day at the end of dry season and it was still super slippery throughout.
I chose the day after I arrived in Cairns to climb up Mt Bartle Frere. The day before I had done acclimatisation hikes to Clamshell Falls in Behana Gorge and Babinda Boulders and also learned how to drive the hire van. Although the heat and humidity was stifling coming from a cool climate there was torrential rain forecast for the rest of that week so I didn’t have time to wait to acclimatise. You do not want to go up Mt Bartle Frere in torrential rain.
The track starts here at the top of Josephine Falls Carpark. [All photos taken on the descent]
Josephine Falls – where I swum afterwards and also where I ran to initially when I took the wrong trail.
The track starts at the Josephine Falls carpark just beyond the picnic tables with a subtle sign. I had assumed the track branched off Josephine Falls, so I did an accidental warm up run to the falls before looping back to the carpark. The track is immediately technical with rocks, roots and creek crossings, with every step a potential trip hazard. By the time I started it was 7:30am, but underneath the rainforest canopy it was so dark I could definitely have used a headlight. At about the 2km mark I tripped on a root and flew off into the rainforest, collecting my first leeches and coating myself in some nice rainforest mud. That was the first time I have tripped on a trail for years, and just after passing an eerie memorial for a school age child that went missing on Bartle Frere. The terrain continued to undulate taking in two river crossings. The rocks were treacherously slippery, covered in thick moss so I walked through the rivers instead of trying to rock hop. I should also mention I was wearing salomon shoes with standard but not great grip as I had to cater for my plantar fasciitis. But even if you had footwear with excellent grip you would find this track slippery.
By this stage it was apparent that I was going to aim for a summit and safe return rather than any kind of fast time. At the 3km mark the terrain suddenly becomes very steep with several parts that involve climbing on all fours using tree roots to pull yourself up. Although very technical, the track is navigationally easy to follow. By the 4km mark I was almost 100% power walking with a few little running steps here and there in the rare runnable sections. It is also here that the leeches come thick and fast. I had soaked my socks in DEET before leaving, but they were still crawling up my shoes and legs. The first bite I got was in the thumb crease as with all the crawling they were also on my hands and arms. At the 5km mark there was some rock hopping that I thought was the boulders people had talked about, but this was just the warm up. Soon after these rocks the rainforest fell away to alpine tundra, at about 1,400m above sea level.
Part of the lower trail through rainforest.
Steep ascending up eroded rainforest
I found the tropical alpine tundra fascinating as it is very different to what we have around Kosciusko National Park and Namadgi National Park where I usually live in Canberra. Where the tundra starts is also where there is a metal hut, some elevated wooden sites for camping and a very small circular clearing I assume is where helicopters can land in good weather. Many people have died and been seriously injured on Mt Bartle Frere which is why they have built this shelter and helicopter clearing. After the tundra the boulder field begins. In dry conditions this would be fun, but in wet conditions, it is treacherously slippery, with the consequence of a slip being a fair drop off in parts. It is not surprising that there have been injuries and deaths here. The bouldering reminded me a bit of the boulders around Cradle Mountain summit in Tasmania, but larger and requiring much more reach to get around. Visibility was very poor at this point because of the cloud whipping around. Although well sign posted with orange reflectors, I often could not see more than one metre in front, so had to guess what direction to go in.
Boulder field
One of the hand holds on the boulder field. You can see the small orange reflectors to follow through the field.
Finally the boulder fields makes way to the last half kilometre which is again in rainforest (though slightly stunted due to the elevation), up a very eroded almost vertical creek bed. At the top there is a sign where the western ascent and eastern ascent meet. At the top I took off all my clothes to remove leeches. This is not my first time in north queensland, so I easily found the leeches in my bra and behind one ear and then put everything back on for the descent including my rain jacket.
The last part of the trail to the summit.
No views at the summit. Just a small clearing to assist with removing leeches while not getting an equal number of new leeches.
Descending was more treacherous than the ascent, but that is often the case and I was careful particularly on the boulder field. I passed a few people on the descent and it was nice to see some human life. After the boulder field I relaxed a little, slipping occasionally on rainforest roots but not worrying too much until about half way down when I did not see a rock and smashed my left patella straight into it. I had searing pain and blood immediately streamed down my leg but I knew I had to keep moving or it would completely stiffen up if I slowed to a hike. So I kept hobbling down the mountain, continuing to slip here and there and probably scaring a few hikers I passed with the blood. It was such a relief to be spat out of the rainforest into Josephine Falls carpark. I stopped to inspect what I had thought was a wound forming on me knee but on closer inspection it was two massive leeches feasting on my knee wound. It was such bliss sitting in the creek looking at Josephine Falls afterwards.
It took me 2hr 20min to get to the summit and 1hr 45min to get back down. These times show just how technical and steep the climbing is. If you are lucky enough to get a dry day it would be safer to go at a faster speed, particularly on the descent. There is no water after 3km on the trail so bringing enough is very important. I drank 1L on the way up and 500mL on the descent but could have used more. I ate one packet of skratch lab chews but again should have brought more fuel with me.
Tropical sub alpine tundra about 1,400m above sea level.
Trail just after the hut.
Mt Halifax
Mt Halifax is only 1,000m high, but on hearing it is one of the most technical mountain trails in Queensland I had to have a go. The climb to the top is 6km, 1000m of vertical gain. On inspecting the topographic map the first 2-3km appeared runnable before the track veers to a very steep scramble. I was very wrong about the first couple of kilometres.
The trail begins at the Pace Farm gate at the end of Pace Rd off the Bruce Highway, near Rollingstone, north of Townsville. After driving down Pace Rd through Cane Fields, you park outside a very unassuming gate. Mr Pace himself was driving by as I was parking and explained that I needed to park much further from the gate to allow room for farm machinery. This hike initially goes along the Pace Farm property before going into national park, so if you do this hike respect the parking signs and the farm as you park and start the hike. There is no fancy signage, but it is clear that the track starts down a firetrail to the right immediately after walking through the gate. I started jogging and within 100m a green tree snake ran across in front of me. The firetrail continued and within 800m I had seen another two snakes, this time small brown snakes. I usually have a ‘three snakes in the first km and turn back’ rule. However I had come so far off the beaten track to get to this trail I decided to keep going at a slower pace. I had seen the snakes with plenty of time and being already 27 degrees they were warm enough to get away from me quickly. Soon the trail turned to single trail and then joined a creek. The next 2.5 kilometres were straight up a creek bed bouldering over large rocks, with a few excursions off to the side to run through fairly rocky, technical rainforest. The creek bed had water in parts but was mainly dry due to it being the end of dry season. I saw six more snakes in this section, mainly red belly black snakes, but also one enormous diamond python. The snake highlight was probably when a red belly escaped from me by going in the water and under a rock (did you know these snakes not only swim but can submerge themselves in water for long periods of time???). Turned out I had to step on this rock to cross to the other side of the creek. I definitely was not wading through that water at ankle biting height. After waiting for a couple of minutes and the snake not moving I decided to jump on the rock across the river regardless. I have never sprinted so fast after a rock jump. I did not get bitten and I hope I did not squash the snake. Anyway, you get the idea of how slow I was going for snake safety. It was bit like jump onto a rock, stamp feet, let the snakes move off surrounding rocks, when the slithering noises stop jump onto the next boulder, and repeat.
The trail goes straight up the creek bed. You can see the purple rope in the bottom right for getting up through this section.
Trail registration box at the Pace Rd gate. Trail starts immediately to the right after the gate.
Trail goes straight up this rock slide.
Some more rocky trail. You can see how dry it is at the end of dry season. I imagine in wet season it would be very slippery.
After 3km the path mercifully left the creek bed and veered steeper into the rainforest. Soon I reached what is called the ‘rock slide’, which can be described as a scree slope, but is so eroded where you go up it is more near vertical slick soil. There are ropes at this point and it would likely be impossible to get up without them. After the main rockslide there are sections of rooty rainforest interspersed with more rock bouldering and rope assisted climbing. Eventually I made it to the ridge line which was surprisingly covered by casuarina forest. There were fantastic views at Echo Point and then some more climbing. After a couple of false summits, the vegetation changed to rainforest and the last part to the summit was nice and shady rainforest with a ferny gully preceding the last climbing. The views at the top across the ocean were spectacular. My phone had gone flat by this point though so unfortunately I do not have any photos. The ascent took about 1hr 50min at a careful ‘run’/power hike.
Initially I had fun on the descent. I love the thrill of tricky descending in isolated places. On the rope sections I found it was quicker to face away from the mountain (descending forwards as you would a normal hill). I slipped a few times and on the final time cracked the back of my head on a rock. After that I changed to normal abseiling technique (facing mountain, descending backwards) as I was feeling a bit dizzy. I was dreading returning to the creekbed, but apart from seeing the mega diamond python from a distance, there were no snakes on the way back, probably because it was too hot for them to be in the direct sunlight on the rocks by this point. Mt Halifax is a nice technical trail with a lot of rope work best done with others for safety. At the same time it was a good solo challenge and if you are similarly experienced and prepared you could also attempt it solo. Being on the southern edge of the wet tropics it can be done as a daytrip from Townsville or on the way to Paluma village.
I have registered for the trifecta weekend but there is no guarantee I will get to go. I do not know if I will be in SA or the ACT at the time. Borders can rapidly close even if they are currently open. I do …