Trailwalker website update

Oxfam have recently updated their Trailwalker website, and I think it's a great improvement. Head on over there and check it out!

And they walked by the light of the moon...

Well, two of us did, anyway.

Owing to unforeseen circumstances, we were short-handed last night on our walk from Olinda to Woori Yallock, a 30km stretch of the trail that we demolished in a touch over 5 hours. It was quite a hard walk, in that we really pushed the pace, but the actual trail itself was fairly easy-going. The revised route between Olinda and Mt Evelyn (taking in Silvan dam) has removed some of the more precipitous downhill sections, and also excised the 'mystery hill' that wasn't on the cross-sectional plot last year. The only slightly unpleasant section is just after Silvan dam, when one sees a sign saying 'Mt Evelyn - 4.6km'. After walking for about 15 minutes, we came across a new sign saying 'Mt Evelyn - 4.8km'.



The Warburton trail was closer to the road than I remembered, and there seemed to be many more houses close to the path (they can't all have been built in that time, surely?). However, it's still pretty long and boring. We were pretty pleased when we got to the Killara platforms at about 11:15pm, with only about 4km left to go...



As you can see, it was pretty dark, and my diddy cameraphone struggled to make Eoin out. Still, we got to Woori Yallock on the stroke of midnight, slightly sore but with increased confidence for the event. Maybe next weekend we'll repeat the dose with the other two MOOs.

Campervan update

Looks like we might be in luck...
We'd thought that hiring a campervan might be a good idea - somewhere for the B team to play cards while they're waiting, and somewhere for us to lie down to get a massage at checkpoints (to say nothing of somewhere to sit in the event of rain). Unfortunately, all the companies seem to want minimum 5 days hire - which adds up to a fair bit of money.

However, Belinda has managed to swing a great little vehicle for us from a generous donor of her acquaintance! Woo hoo! We can get a nice hot dinner now (I don't think we'll be using the solar handheld shower....).

View to the finish line (and how not to take a photo...)

B team update

You may remember from an earlier post that our support team all had to have names beginning with B, and that this proved problematic for Katherine (clumsily renamed Batherine). Well, in a stroke of genius, she remembered that Kate is actually short for Bob, so Bob she is.

I hope we weren't meant to turn left there...

Those wonderful Baretto Staff!

The fabulous staff at Baretto Espresso Bar are continuing to come up with new ways of supporting the MOO Walkers 2007 campaign. They have very generously given over the proceeds of their tip jar for two months to the Moo Walkers. And last week the staff organised a casual day wearing jeans to work and each donated $5 to Oxfam. They are also responsible for our caffine addictions but that's another story ...