2021 Heysen Trail
Virus image
COVID strikes again! It’s just eight days to go until I was due to start my much anticipated journey on the Heysen Trail. Had I started this trip in early June, I would have finished it just prior to the latest round of COVID lockdowns; hindsight is wonderful. Things weren’t looking good a week or so ago and while South Australia at that stage seemed to be avoiding the lockdowns, as a Canberra resident I wasn’t allowed to enter the state. As the current round of lockdowns increases and as I write this post, I was left with a number of alternatives:
- Delay the start of the walk on the Heysen Trail
- As a Canberra resident, living in the safest place in the country at the moment, I am unable to access South Australia because apparently we are surrounded my germy NSW. While I had seven weeks of leave booked and had the capacity to shift this leave, it is a very narrow window having just started a new job. As such while I managed to get my required leave, delaying the walk start by two weeks wouldn’t have made me popular at work. This is also assuming that it will be just two weeks before the borders open but I don’t really see me being able to access South Australia until at least late August at the earliest.
- Pull the pin on the trip altogether
- The second option and ultimately the one that I have landed on is to pull the pin on the Heysen in 2021. I chose the Heysen Trail, originally planned for 2022, because it was located in a single state and didn’t require crossing multiple borders as I walked. I figured that this would be the safest option in the event of another COVID lockdown which unfortunately wasn’t the case.
This walk was one of my most anticipated long distance hikes in years but having said that the trail will be there next year and hopefully by that stage lockdowns will be a thing of the past! At least I have a full set of planning in place so when it does come time to try again it wont require a huge amount of logistical preparation.
This doesn’t mean I wont be hiking and after some very rapid decision making ‘I have a cunning plan’! Check in on the next post to be released on 22 July 2021 to find out what I am up to.
COVID strikes again! It’s just eight days to go until I was due to start my much anticipated journey on the Heysen Trail. Had I started this trip in early June, I would have finished it just prior to the latest round of COVID lockdowns; hindsight is wonderful. Things weren’t looking good a week or […]