2026 Heysen Trail
Frowny Face
For those who have been following my journey on South Australia’s Heysen Trail you will have noticed my radio silence over the past week. My last post on day 8 had me arriving at Elm School Campsite on Wednesday evening after a very hard day walking up and down a very steep ridge that took its toll physically. At the time the impact was a concern but I put it into the watch and see category.
The next day I planned to head on to Calabrinda Creek Campsite which was my next site and one of the shorter days at just over 16km but things didn’t go as expected. In addition to my leg issue becoming much worse, a head and chest cold which had been coming on for a couple of days hit the night before and I found myself only managing to walk 6.5km in 3 hours. This pace was unsustainable moving forward. I was concerned my hip replacement had taken a backward step as it felt like the metal shaft running down my leg bone was moving. For this reason, along with the head and chest cold, I decided to pull the pin. My first plan was to continue on to Quorn and finish there. However, given the speed that I was moving and my leg pain, it would have taken an additional two days – more than I had planned with insufficent food and should my symptoms worsen, there was no easy way out on this section.
Around lunchtime after much thought I decided to backtrack and finish my hike at Hawker. The pain in may leg was such that I managed to make it back to the Elm School Campsite and that was as far as I could manage; going the additional distance to get to Hawker on that day wasn’t possible. The next day I made my way back to Hawker and my very understanding wife Gill, arrived later in the day after driving nearly 1500km.
On returning to Canberra I contacted my surgeon and arranged for some testing. The x-rays turned up nothing showing the prothesis to be perfectly fine but the ultrasound identified a torn quadricep which was what was causing the leg pain. On-trail the pain felt like my prothesis was moving within the bone. Even now, eight days after both the cold and the leg issue first surfaced, the leg is still causing me pain and my cold is lingering making it difficult to breathe.
For me this was all a bit of a shock given that only a couple of months earlier I had successfully completed the 260km Great South West Walk without issues. In that case the elevation change, when there was any, was gradual. The track surface on that trail was relatively flat with no rocky obstacles like the Heysen presents.
So where to from here? My next step is with my physiotherapist, to work my way through my muscle tear and to hopefully build the resilience I need to deal with the more challenging hikes. As disappointed as I am not to complete the Heysen, it was the right decision to pull the pin rather than keep on going and need assistance to get off-trail.
Thank you to those who followed me, as well as providing assistance on this short journey that ended up being just over 151km. The Heysen is till on my list but just when remains to be seen.
Previous Post For those who have been following my journey on South Australia’s Heysen Trail you will have noticed my radio silence over the past week. My last post on day 8 had me arriving at Elm School Campsite on Wednesday evening after a very hard day walking up and down a very steep ridge […]