2026 Great South West Walk
Today is ‘travel day’ leaving Canberra at 4:00am and due to arrive in Portland, Victoria at around 6:30pm.
As I write this post I’m sitting in my bus seat and have been on the road for around 35 minutes. Loved the 3:00am alarm, not! Thankyou Gill for dropping me off.
I just realised that this will be the longest land based trip I have ever done by public transport, and while it’s an extra four hours on top of driving, I appreciate not having to focus on the road for long periods.
Booking this transport was a relatively easy process with the hardest part being to align the two legs of the trip. The sacrifice was the early Canberra start but the alternative was to arrive in Portland around midnight so I gave that a miss as it would have meant a bad nights sleep leading into my walk.
Once I hit Melbourne I have roughly two hours to wait before my train/bus trips to get me to my destination. Given the current Middle East situation the Victorian transport cost is almost non existent with the state government encouraging people to use public transport.
On a non transport related topic, yesterday I needed to get a new pair of lycra gaiters so decided to walk to my closest outdoor store. I had to have a rest when I returned home which worried me leading into this trip. It wasn’t until I realised why it tired me out – I had walked just on 7km in distance at a pace of 5km per hour. This was a pace I haven’t been able to do for a number of years and for the first time in many years, I’m not even thinking about walking speed as a limiting factor.
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Due to my father’s careers I spent a lot of time travelling overseas as a child. Then as adults for various reasons we both spent a lot of time travelling both for work and recreation. As a result we are both reasonably good at packing. Mind you, my packing style isn’t pretty, particularly compared to Gill’s; she’s more of a ‘fold it’ type of packer where I’m more of a ‘stuff it’ type.
One of the packing habits we have long held is that we always do an initial pack and then the next day pull it all apart and start all over. Yesterday’s pack, including 2.5 litres of water, totalled 19.03kg. Today after disassembling my pack and going through everything with a fine tooth comb, I managed to get my pack weight down to 17.6kg, a drop of 1.43kg. Not a huge amount by any means but close to my preferred (arbitrary) maximum weight of 17.5kg.
So how did I manage to drop this weight? First and foremost out of pure habit I packed my cold weather sleeping bag because traditionally I tend to hike in late winter. I then proceeded to add my new ‘shoulder season’ sleeping bag that I will be testing that weighs less and squashes down even smaller than my main sleeping bag. Removing my heavier weight sleeping bag was the biggest individual weight drop even though it’s not a heavy bag.
Then I realised I packed an extra 2 pair of socks, 5 pairs in total with what I was wearing, so there went 2 pairs. Still on the clothing, I swapped out a heavy weight merino layer and added in a lighter weight option.
All these changes, no matter how small all add up!
Given I am traveling on public transport I’m using a heavy grade duffle bag which will stay at my Portland accomodation until I return so my final task was to dissemble my pack and then layer it this bag. In going through this process one thing I realised I was missing is that I use lycra gaiters on most of my hikes. I thought I had 2 and realised that one of them had died on my last big hike so after a quick phone call to check availability, it’s a quick trip into my local outdoor store in the morning.
Now that I have all my gear and food sorted it’s time to do a test pack to see if I can fit everything into my chosen pack, and thankfully I have a choice. In addition it’s also an opportunity to see what my pack weight is looking like.
For this first test run my total pack weight, including 2.5 litres of water, is 19.03kg. While on the heavy side it’s not bad considering I am carrying 10.5 days of food. Tomorrow I will run through the packing process all over again looking at every piece of gear within my pack to see what I can jettison to help lighten the load.
At least I know I will drop an average of 550 grams per day in food weight as the hike progresses!
Yesterday afternoon was spent putting my food together for my upcoming trip on the Great South West Walk. I’ve done this enough times now that I’ve gotten reasonably quick in doing it and it only took me just a couple of hours in total given I had everything I needed.
I’m carrying food for the entire trip (minus town days) and while I have enough food to keep me happy, unlike previous trips where I come home with leftovers, this time that won’t be the case.
Over the past few years I have managed to work out my eating patterns and I’m averaging 550 grams (dry weight) of food for each day. I’ve worked this out over the years that it’s pretty much impossible to consume the amount of calories I burn on a daily basis and when I’m in full-on long distance hiking mode, I can burn up to 8,000+ calories a day on my really big days. This trip is nowhere near that extreme but I still do expect to loose about 6-7kg over the duration of the trip.
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The final week leading into a big hike can be a bit frantic. In addition to getting everything sorted around the house, as a full-time blogger there’s the social media and blog related preparations to put in place, including preparing for podcasting and posting along the trail to help minimise the work I need to do to edit for releasing the podcast.
Then there’s the gear. Last night I collected all my gear into one place and while the majority is very easy to locate, a few things need to be collected from the various hiding holes around the house. All my gear does have a specific home but the location is all sitting in my head which doesn’t help Gill when she needs to find things.
One of the jobs that I have to do in month is to itemise everything and set it up in specific bins so that I/Gill know exactly where everything is located. without having to ask each other. This has been one of those tasks that I keep putting on hold but given the planned walks over the coming year it’s now become a priority.
The image in this post is my gear all laid out across the couch, inlacing what I’ll be wearing but doesn’t include food which is the next task.
I know from experience that while this might look like a lot of gear, it will however comfortably fit into my pack and then into my wheelie bag which is for packing everything safely to go on the bus/train. The wheelie bag will stay behind at my hotel ready for my return trip.
Pulling all our gear together a few days before allows me to identify any shortfalls and means we have time to visit a local store if needed. In this case I have everything we need so will do one final run over to see if I need to add/delete anything from this trip and then do a test pack in a couple of day including all food before packing everything into a wheelie bag ready for my bus trip to Melbourne.
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On the downhill slope so to speak with just 7 days to go before I start my journey on the Great South West Walk in Victoria. Apart from continuing fitness and pack training, the past week has been spent on some final organisational details organising my hotel stays in Portland and thinking through some final equipment choices. This week in the lead in will be busy finalising food and doing a test pack of everything making sure I have what I need.
In 2017-18 prior to doing the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia I spent 18 months testing my physical abilities to work out what I was capable of as far as on-trail walking speed in a variety of terrain as well as how far I could push my body. For me GSWW will be a whole new ball game and while I have been improving my fitness over the past 11 months post hip replacement and being happy where I am at physically, this walk will be a test on how I stack up. My walking speed has improved dramatically over the past few months but I know from personal experience that when I walk solo, I do walk slower than when we walk as a couple.
I have certainly scaled back the distances I will be covering on a daily basis on this trip and wont’ be doing the extremes that I used to do in the past, at least until I know exactly what I can handle. I have allowed additional rest days during the walk as well as an additional day prior to starting to ensure I am fully rested prior to heading off on Sunday 19 April.
For me this will be the longest walk I have done for a number of years and apart from the pre trip nerves, I am looking forward to getting back out bush again.
The start of this walk is fast approaching and apart from finalising logistical considerations including starting to get all the relevant bits and pieces, including food together.
Over the past week I have started pack training and that means instead of doing my daily walks carrying a weight pack. In my case I use a dedicated pack that contains heavy duty 5kg rice bags and a blanket as a space filler. Depending on my fitness level I will usually start off with 10kg of rice (12kg total pack) and build up over the weeks leading into the walk start with 15kg (17kg). When I pack train I walk on a variety of terrains including around the suburbs and also on nearby trails which includes hill/mountain hiking. For me this is the hardest that I have pushed myself post my 2025 operation and as has previously been the case it forces me to use both legs equally. That might sound a bit strange but my limp, which was a result of a bad hip is now just habit built up over a period of 5-6 years.
On any given week I walk a minimum of 50+ km with much of this being with a my weighted pack. In addition, to using rice I will also use a 10 litre water bladder when doing serious mountain walks to push myself going uphill and on the downhill runs will jettison the water to reduce the impact my knees.
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Logistics for long distance hikes don’t just start at the trailhead but instead start from the moment you leave home, until you arrive back. When Gill and I decided to do the Great South West Walk a number of months ago the plan was to drive to Portland in Victoria, leave the car somewhere safe, and then once the walk had finished, drive home. In total this amounted to approximately 1ooo km of driving.
However, over the past few weeks we have been monitoring the fuel situation very closely and while it appears that the availability of fuel seems to be stabilising, some service stations continue to have supply issues. In addition, having a diesel 4WD the price to fill up has gone up by around 70% over the past month. As such, we made the decision to travel by commercial/public transport but that turned this into a solo hike given the extra time needed to get to and from the trail. So instead of doing the GSWW, Gill is now planning on spending a couple of weeks with me on the Heysen Trail when I do that walk later in the year.
We may well have been fine to drive, but the risk, no matter how small, of getting delayed in western Victoria in search of fuel or taking extra days to get home wasn’t what we were willing to do given Gill needed to get back to her work.
I spent a few hours yesterday working out my transport options and will now be relying on bus and train transport from Canberra through to Portland. On the plus side this is a cheaper option, but also one that is more time consuming. I have added an extra day at the start and end of the trip to ensure I get to the trailhead on time and also meet my booked return travel arrangements.
In my case this extra time means that if I end up sitting in a hotel room, I can still do my (hiking) work; all I need is internet signal.
In choosing to do the Great South West Walk we could have chosen any time of the year but the key factors in our decision included Gill being able to get leave from her work, and my plans to do additional walks later in the year so Autumn looked like the best choice. We also tried to avoid school holidays and this includes Easter as it means that there will be less traffic on the road and potentially less people on the trail.
We were originally looking at the last half of March however the daily temperatures were still a bit hot for our liking, in fact as I write this post on 24 March 2026, the forecast for Portland Victoria (trail head) was 25 ℃ but by pushing the start date back a month the max/min temperatures drop a couple of degrees to a more reasonable level with night time temperatures being around 12℃. In addition the rainfall days bump up a bit but is still out of the winter peak so overall we are still happy with the weather patterns. So what it came down to time wise was Mid-late April which is when we are starting our walk.
Distance wise this walk will be the biggest walk that I have done in a number of years and given I will be just on 12 month post hip replacement I wanted to take it ‘easy’. By easy I mean not trying to do 30+km days. On this particular walk you are covering either 251km or 263km depending on which option you choose along the southern half of the walk and we have opted for the 263km version which will, if things aren’t going well, allow us to change to the shorter distance and in doing so save a day. We have scheduled in a rest day in Nelson to allow time for us to physically recuperate and to finalise and publish the first on trail podcast episodes for this trail. For those days that we are on trail we will be averaging 19km/day.
Note: We are paying close attention to whats happening in the Middle East at the moment as we will have a 1000km drive to and from the trailhead so we need to be able to purchase petrol to get us there and home! I haven’t gone as far as identifying an alternative walk but it’s in the back of my mind just in case.
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Over the past few weeks I have sorted out most of the accomodation for this walk with includes hotel/motel accomodation in Portland (Victoria) on the night before we start the walk as well as accomodation on the last night before driving home the next day. We will also do hotel/motel accomodation in Nelson on the nights of day 7 and 8 just a tad over half way at just over 133km into the trip arriving towards the days end. This will provide a full rest day to take a break, finalise and publish the podcast, and wash our clothes. The remainder of the accomodation, 11 nights, will be camping. The campsite bookings are mainly (9 nights) through the Parks Victoria website and at the time of doing this walk (April/May 2026) the was cost $12.80 in total for the two of us each night. Two of those nights were booked directly through the Great South West Walk website and these sites don’t attract any charge.
As part of the accomodation booking we needed to decide which direction we were going to travel on this loop trail. There is nothing stopping you from walking clockwise or anticlockwise however the recommendation is to do this walk in an anticlockwise direction at our chosen time of the year as this direction minimises the impacts of the prevailing winds and provides the best views of the coastal cliffs towards the end of the walk. If doing the walk in summer, the recommendation changes to clockwise, again because of the seasonal winds. In our case we opted for the anticlockwise direction mainly because there is an option to shorten the track by 1 day depending on which option you choose. While we are planning on doing the longer walk, if things aren’t going to plan and we are running behind, we can always do the shorter route to pick up a day.
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Over the past few weeks I have sorted out most of the accomodation for this walk with includes hotel/motel accomodation in Portland (Victoria) on the night before we start the walk as well as accomodation on the last night before driving home the next day. We will also do hotel/motel accomodation in Nelson on the […]