The big walk - a visit to the house of pain

Saturday 4th March - day of the big walk. John, Linda, Justine, Shona, Kate, Brian assembled dutifully at Olinda at 8.00am. We were lucky to have the fabulous Julie -the support team person to the stars was our lifeline for the day. One concern - it was going to be very very warm for a 47km walk - 31 degrees down on the flats where we would be toiling in the heat of the day.

We started off slowly - coffee at Jells Park while we waited for the other car to catch up, however the Jells Park Cafe computer crashed and lost everyones order. Twenty minutes later we were still waiting - they were not coping well. Finally the coffee arrived and we hit the trail at 9.22am.

We meandered along a little for the first section, reaching Churchill Park at about 12.00 to find the gate closed! Luckily, it was only pulled closed by someone who obviously wanted to keep the park to themselves. Julie had bought nice pastries that we tucked into for 'morning tea'.

Off on the next leg to Lysterfield lake in the heat of the day. A hot walk, and we were glad to finally get there around 2.30pm. There is a beach at the lake - very nice, but no swimming for us. Poor Julie got a bit lost on the way, so we just lay down under a cool tree and traded mobile phone calls with her until she navigated to the right place with a thousand apologies.

Off again after a longer rest than planned - now we were a little dehydrated. The next section to Upper Ferntree Gully was hell. All muscles cramping due to dehydration. Everyone had some problem on this section. Exhaustion at the rest point, and some welcome refuelling on sandwiches. Thanks to the magic magnesium phosphate tablets and a rest and the cool of the evening, we started up the Kododa trail steps - 30 minutes of stairs after 11 hours walking.

In the cool of the evening, we got our second wind, and with limited light (some misguided souls thought that we would be finished by dark and did not bring torches - I bought two!) we made our way over to Olinda by 11.15 pm finish. Nearly 14 hours walking. Most of us thought we could push on to Mt Evelyn before our planned overnight stop. Back home to Melbourne - a long drive after a long day.