Everyday Hiker
Hiking inspiration, tips and guides for South East Queensland region and beyond. Featuring special guests revealing their favourite trails and gear recommendations.
Everyday Hiker
Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk with Jenny Woodhouse
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Join me and my special guest Jenny Woodhouse as she takes us through the four day Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk. Jenny is a prolific hiker and videos many of her adventures on YouTube. She uses the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk as a training run for some of her bigger hikes and will often loop it twice if not three times. Jenny talks through the natural environment you will experience each day, where to start and finish, overnight hiking options and some practical tips of gear to bring with you.
Links:
Jenny's YouTube channel - WHY I HIKE | A Personal Story | Rainforest Relaxation Film | 4K | Mt Glorious Queensland Australia
Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk, Queensland, Australia - 66 Reviews, Map | AllTrails
Campsite bookings - Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk | Parks and forests | Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation
Mapleton Pub - M
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Are you looking for details of the most beautiful weekend hikes in Southeast Queensland and further afield? Well, you're in the right place. Welcome to the Everyday Hiker Podcast. My name is Beck and I'm your host. Join me and my guest hikers as we share amazing locations, practical tips, and guides for new hikers as well as those with more experience looking for some inspiration. And please, if you like what you hear, follow me, share with your friends, rate my podcast, and send me your feedback. Hello everyone, and I am really excited today to have a special guest whose videos on YouTube I've been watching and thinking, wow, what an inspiring lady. Welcome to the Everyday Hiker Podcast, Jenny Woodhouse.
SPEAKER_00Oh, good morning. It's lovely to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's fantastic. And I could talk to Jenny about so many hikes because her list of hikes she's done is just phenomenal. We were talking before and she told me she's an alpine hiker, she's done all of Mount Kosyosko about to commence a great adventure in Tasmania, which she's done many times as well. New Zealand, there are so many places we could talk about today with Jenny. But I did ask because I saw that Jenny had done a recent YouTube series on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Great Walk. And I know that when people are asking where's a great beginner overnight hike, that this comes up a lot is to start with Sunshine Coast. So I thought I would ask Jenny today, who's done it so many times in so many variations, what the highlights are, how to do a long hike out of it, but also how to do some shorter overnight hikes. So, Jenny, let's kick off with what's your preferred length of time to spend on this walk.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's a great walk that I prefer to use for my hike training with uh weighted back training in preparation for bigger adventures. So I tend to do it in a four-day, the traditional four-day way of doing it, but then a couple of weeks later I'll come back and do it as a six-dayer, and that means that I just continue walking and then finally come back another week or so after that and do it as an eight-dayer, which is a double loop at a total of 160 kilometres all up.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's some good training that you're putting in. So, um and where do you start? Well, traditionally, where would you start?
SPEAKER_00I always start at Baroon Pocket Dam.
SPEAKER_01Right, and there's good parking down there, but one of the things with this walk is you've got to do a little bit of car shuffling because it's not really actually there is a bus I think that goes down to Baroon Pocket Dam um or nearby it, but what are you doing with your car then if you're starting out from Baron Pocket Dam?
SPEAKER_00Yes, in my situation, my husband very very nicely drops about drops me off and picks me up. So for me personally, I don't need to worry about the transport. However, I do understand that there's two taxi services that can also help you out with transport, but otherwise, yes, most people will hike it as a couple or in a small group, and yes, then they need to do a car shuffle before they start hiking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so generally people leave a car at wherever they choose to end up, depending where they're where they're jumping off. And one of the great things about this walk is there are towns along the way, so there are places that you can leave that second car, and then they're all driving back to Broom Pocket Dam where there's really quite good parking and you know to get yourself sorted. So you've arrived at Broompocket Dam. What's day one look like?
SPEAKER_00Oh, day one is just the most beautiful walk through glorious rainforest, usually fungi filled. You know, you're starting at Broom Pocket Dam, and then if I just have a bring my map up, um, you know, the the first couple of areas that I really love are just looking at the taking the time to wander down to the narrows lookout. There's a lovely little waterfall um just near there, and you continue walking all along the trail. It's a very well-formed trail, can be muddy and slippery, does have a lot of stairs, but you're following along the most beautiful natural creek that looks a bit like the creeks that you see up in North Queensland with Dane Tree National Park. So it has those gorgeous big granite boulders, and you're following that all along until you climb up the stairs to go to Kondalilla Falls. And what I like to do is I just walk straight up to the Day Use area and have a good break there. It's usually my second food break of the day. I will have had one somewhere along the creek section, about halfway between Broom Pocket Dam and Kondalilla Day Use area. So my second food break will be at Condalilla Day Use area, and then I'll continue the walk, which is a little bit of road walking. I don't find it annoying at all because you know, let's face it, when you're doing a multi-dayer that involves going from town to town or through national park, there will be the reality is there will be road sections, so a little bit of a road section, I think it's only about 1.6 kilometres, and then you head back into the gorgeous rainforest and keep following that, um, having a look at the giant trees and once again fungi and listening to the bird song, it's utterly delightful until you get to Flaxton Walker's Camp.
SPEAKER_01And I might stop you there, Jenny, to say if we couldn't rush past Condolilla Falls because it really is the most awesome place to have a swim. It's it's a really deep pool, there's a waterfall at the end. There's no really obvious entry area, you have to kind of you know slip your way down the side and into the water, but it's cool, so in summer it's incredibly refreshing. Um so whether you go to the day use area and have lunch first, really, unless it's right in the middle of the winter, you'd be you know missing out on something if you didn't have a dip in the pool there.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you would be, and and um what I usually do is I will have a bit of a break there and before I head up to the day use area. I I did omit that. Um I think you do need to be very careful, particularly if you're an older hiker getting in and out of the water because it is very slippery, and the first time I hiked it, I did actually slip getting into the water and fell pretty heavily on my wrist. So I would warn hikers just to be, if you're older, to be really careful about getting into the water and out of the water. But yes, it is absolutely beautiful. Um, and even if you don't want to go into the water, you can just sit there and watch everyone else while you're having a bit of a food and drink break. And there are very clear safety barriers around Condolilla Falls, and once again, I think it's very important to make sure you're staying within the safe area.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because there was a recent fatality around that area, and just somebody trying to get a bit further down the falls, and it look the safety barriers are there for a reason in that area. It is incredibly slippery, and I agree with you, it's hard to find that entry point in the pool and and hard to sort of climb your way out, but it's worth the effort to do. There's also not too many places, particularly if it's busy, to have that rest break to eat. So I like that you mentioned going up to the day use area because if that's your main goal, it's probably better to either eat before or afterwards and um you know, and do that in an area you can spread out in rather than around the pool.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and the reason I like doing that, if you're looking at the distance for the traditional day one, it is 16.1 kilometres. So that is a fairly decent hike with a lot of um stairs and a bit of elevation gain, and it is traditionally a fairly tiring day, particularly if you're taking your time to wander and take photos and really enjoy it. You do get quite tired on that traditional day one. So when you get when you ascend from Condolilla Falls and you get up to the day use area, you have to walk through that air area anyway. And what I like to do is refill my water there from the toilet block, filtering it. Um, and you know, you have the toilets there, you have covered technique areas, so it's a really lovely area to take a quick 15-20 minute major food break before you continue because the effort to get to that point from Brune Pocket Dam is fairly substantial. The second half of the hike between um between uh the Condolilla Danese area, walking the roadwalk and then into the forest and popping out to your designated camp that afternoon is a really easy walk. So um, yes, it's it's that's how I like to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a good place to have a good stop. And and if you were doing a day walk in the area, this is probably the most popular one, isn't it? Um and and there's a good car park at the Falls Day Use area as well. So if you were doing that shuttle, um, and then of course you're not too far away from a town if you wanted to grab some food, if you didn't want to carry all your food on the way. So so you're you're hiking on from there, and your first night camp is going to be Flaxton Walker's camp, and I really love that particular camp.
SPEAKER_00I like to camp personally. I'm because I'm a solo hiker, I usually choose a campsite that's furtherest away, and there's a coup there's quite a few lovely ones where it's just all amongst the ferns. So Flaxton Walker's Camp visually just looks like a massive garden of giant bracken ferns and other sorts of ferns with towering trees, and it's an absolutely delightful camp. If I remember correctly, that might be the um camp where they've uh put the lock boxes in for your food storage. And there's a I might be, I hope I'm not mixing that up because I haven't hiked this since last year. But there's only when I hiked last year, there was only the one walkers camp where they had food, a big food lockbox, which looks like a tradies lockbox. Um and you know, at each camp you have the um you have a good toilet, um, which is a long drop, but it's always seems to be really clean. I always bring some toilet paper, but I haven't yet run out of toilet paper within the block anyway. Um, and you have water, which it's recommended you filter. So um, apart from rubbish bins on the Sunshine Coast Tinterland great book, like a lot of uh multi-day walks, you need to pack all your rubbish out, but you have all the basics that you have. The only thing that I would add, if there was one little tweak that I could make to this absolutely fabulous multi-day walk, it would be really lovely in the ultimate case scenario to for them to build um an undercover area, just a minimum little pagola, because there have been so many times where I've been hiking in appalling weather conditions with torrential rain, and for me, um, I'm not comfortable cooking in my tent. It's kind of a mobility thing as I'm older. Um, and so I in those situations sometimes I've had to cook underneath the shelter of the toilet block, which isn't ideal. So that would be the only tweak I would make to the campgrounds. Each of them are absolutely beautiful.
SPEAKER_01So soft ground then with your tent, like easy to pitch the tent, and you it you know, if you're looking for a little bit of comfort, you're gonna have to, by the sounds of things, bring your own chairs. There's not any um there's not any picnic shelters there that you can prepare food or sit outside at night.
SPEAKER_00Well, there's no that each each campground, each walkers' camp does have a lovely platform. So you pitch your tent on the ground, and then you have a platform where you can sit and prepare um food, and I like to have a a fragrant bath on the trail as well. Um, but it's just if w when it rains and being in a rainforest, you know it does rain, it would be lovely to have a little basic pagola type structure where you could cook out of the rain. I'm being picky, but that would be my one tweak.
SPEAKER_01But we are talking the hinterland and a bit of rainforest, so rain isn't something that's unusual in the area.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01All right, so next morning, where are you heading to from there?
SPEAKER_00Um so day two, I'm walking from um I'm walking from Uber G Walkers Camp to uh sorry, Flaxen Walker's camp to Uber G Walkers Camp. It's 13.1 kilometres. Once again, each day is graded officially grade three and four, and I definitely agree with those grades. And this is an absolutely delightful day. It's it's one of my absolutely most preferred days because you're um hiking down to Baxter Creek Falls, and that is phenomenally spectacular. You have an incredible suspension bridge, and when you're approaching it from um the Flaxwalkers campsite, you have these giant tree ferns right at the beginning, right at the edge of the suspension bridge, and you cross the suspension bridge. And if you want to go and see the waterfall in the big member man, not to you do that before you cross the suspension bridge. And if you're hiking early morning, the bird song, the um sulfur-breasted cockatoos, black cockatoos, the bird song is absolutely spectacular as you're hiking down from Flaxton Walker's camp. It's quite steep, but it's a well-formed trail. Once again, you need to be very careful around the waterfall. Baxter Creek Falls, very similar to Condolilla in that it's slippery. I love to have a food break there, drink break, and spend some time filming and on photography, and then you walk across a suspension bridge, and then the exit up to the road is very, very steep. Um it's gradual, but it if if if you're a hiker that's uh fair who is fairly new to hiking, and perhaps this might be your first multi-dayer, you will get a lot of hikers comment that yes, that hill up to the road from the waterfall from Baxter Creek Falls does go on for a while, but you know it zigzags all the way up the hill, so you can stop wherever you want, have a look at the giant uh fallen trees with the moss all over them, and once again the fungi, and and uh yes, then head up to the road, and then you have once again some road walking, um, which doesn't go on for long before you enter back into uh the rainforest and you make your way towards Uber G Walkers Camp.
SPEAKER_01And that's a lot quieter that leg, isn't it, than day one. Day one's gonna be a day walk, there are gonna be people just going to the Condolilla Falls. Day two is gonna be quieter, so as you said, you can take your time you know around the falls and on that on that um steep path up. And do you use hiking poles, Jenny? Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I do, because studies have shown that they transfer about one-third or 30% of your upper body from uh of your body weight from your lower body. So it helps um relieve discomfort in your lower back, hips, knees, and ankles, and it transfers it up through the upper body and helps support your lower body. So I actually I don't hike anywhere without hiking poles. I use them every day, all day, um, five days a week on every hike, and and that's definitely a recommendation that um I would suggest is very worthwhile if you're managing any sort of um medical issues, any sort of joint or um hip or any sort of discomfort in that area. If you're older, they're absolutely trend tremendous in supporting that backpack weight on top.
SPEAKER_01And that's what I'm just thinking because climbing up out of the Baxter Falls, that you know, the poles are just really, really helpful. Um, because like you said, it's it's kind of gradual and zigzag, but it still requires a bit of effort to lift yourself up over some of the steps on the way up, doesn't it? So and it can be muddy um depending on how much rain we've had. So that's the other thing that hiking poles can help with, testing the depth on the track before you you have to step your boot into it.
SPEAKER_00So but also stabilising you as you're walking through those muddy bits, you know, trying to stay on the trail and not walk around the edges or anything like that. So to do that when you're walking through the thick, screlchy mud, which I really enjoy, but you know, smaller footsteps place closely together, and then using your hiking poles is how I choose to negotiate that sort of environment. The poles are very, very helpful for stabilisation, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you're at Uber G Walker's camp for night two, similar sort of setup as Flexton's?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so you you know, lots of ground, not overly level to camp on, I must say. Once again, I choose a spot towards the back. Um so level ground can be a bit of an issue at that one. Um, but it generally speaking you can work around that. I personally I like to have my head higher, and I'm quite happy to have it sloping down a little bit towards my feet when I'm setting up my tent. I tend to lay the ground sheet out and have a bit of a lie down on it first just to check that I'm happy with that before I put the tent up, so I might fill around with that. And once again, you have the um platform with each campsite to lay all your gear out and cook on. Once again, toilet block, water, um yes, everything's provided, and at that campsite you have an absolutely glorious sunset viewing platform. So at Golden Hour, I tend to take my all my dinner down there and I might have a happier down there, but I definitely have dinner down there as well. Rehydrate, admire those absolutely incredible views. You're looking from Uber G Walker's camp out directly across to um to Thilbart Alba camp. So you're seeing where you're going to be hiking the next day, and the views through the valley there and having the mountains all around you is really a special spot. It's the only one that has well, it's the best viewing platform. There's also a viewing platform at Thilbart Alba Camp, but I personally prefer the one at Ubergy Walkers Camp.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that's a great tip. So at this point, if you just wanted to do your first overnight hike in the area, this is probably going to be one of the picks that you've you've come up from Baroon Pocket Dam, you've stayed at Flaxton, you you there is just a short walk really from the road into Ubergy. So if you didn't want to stay the second night, you could go in, get your sunset view, have a break, and then walk back out to the car because you can park on the verges of the road there. That's a place that you could leave your second car if you just wanted to do an overnight.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, that's a good point actually, because there are a number of places where you can leave your car or get picked up. I personally prefer to get picked up at Leafy Lane car park at the trail head there, which is right near there. It's it's a very quick entry in. So that's an alternate place to be um picked up because that brings us on to day three and four if you want to, or if you wanted to not do uh choose day one and two to hike. Commonly people like to do the big loop, which is day three and four. And in that case, you would start at Leafy Lane. And I prefer to walk that loop clockwise because once you leave Philbert Valva Walkers Camp, you're going down all the stairs at the beginning of the day, walking through incredible scribbly gum forest and beautiful grass trees with the all the Zantharias, and you're going down the stairs and heading into the rainforest before walking out. Um so some people prefer to walk the loop counterclockwise. Personally, I don't enjoy doing all of those stairs right up to Mount Phil Batalba where the walkers camp is at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_01Yes, okay, that's a good point. So, and really you're only about 15 minutes away from Montville at this stage, so um it's pretty easy to get someone to come and pick you up or drop you off, and whether they're staying at Montville or or whatever it may be, it's it's really not too far, like I said, from some of those big towns in the hinterland. So, okay, we've woken up at Ubergy and we're heading to Thilbethalba. Um what's the trouble? Like that day.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's absolutely beautiful. Um, the first part, a little bit like the day before, you get to walk down to another spectacular waterfall, and that's Jurella Falls. And it's it's gorgeous, you know. Both of the waterfalls, we have the three all up, I guess, but the third one's really pretty as well. It doesn't have the features of the suspension bridge like you had at Baxter's Creek Falls. But it is absolutely beautiful and well worth stopping there. And you do that very early in the day, and then um and then you continue. It's rainforest walking, a little bit of road walking. Um I suppose the main feature of that day is the waterfall, but then also once you get up onto the escarpment, which is my other most favourite part of the trail, you're walking very close to the cliff edges, and the vegetation up there just changes completely. You have a lot of banks, you have all of the grass trees, you have the scribbly gums, it's a completely different feel from the rainforest that you would have encountered on day one and two.
SPEAKER_01And the walkers' camp, is it drier? Is it a bit more out of the rainforest?
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's right up on the edge of the escarpment. So there's several there's actually a heap of camp spots to choose from. If it's windy, you might choose the ones furtherest back, which are quite a walk away from the escarpment edge. I on every occasion have chosen the sites right on the edge of the escarpment. Once again, there's a viewing platform there, this time it's made out of stone, has delightful views over the Merry Valley below, and has the same facilities as the others. You know, the platform to lay your weird gear out. Once again, that um it can be a bit challenging finding level ground. The main challenge with um Filba Falba Walker's Camp is getting tent pegs into the ground because it's very rocky, very dry, and usually most hikers choose to use um instead of tent pegs, they'll use the little big little rock and big rock system of attaching your tent to the ground and weighting it down rather than trying to get tent pegs in. Because even if you were to try and put water on the ground and let that soak in before you get your tent pegs in, it's really really challenging. So I usually just use rocks to attach to my guy ropes, guy lines in order to attach the tent to the ground for that one. So that's the only real challenge. It is very dry up there, completely different environment.
SPEAKER_01And I imagine because it's in a escarpment, it could get windy too. So that's a great tip if you're um if you're uh camping overnight. There is um you're gonna have to think about um the right method to secure your tent because you'll need to if it's windy night as well and hard ground. So um, and there's plenty of YouTube videos on the best way to do that. So something to do your homework on.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So day four, like you said, you're heading down.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so I so I'm walking from um Philberth Alba Walker's camp, and I would be walking um that loop clockwise, continuing going. I like to start really early in the morning, either just in the dark or as it's turning to day, because the views with the golden light as it filters through the scribbly gum forest with the white trunks and and the trees, it's just really a majestic walk, and and the wildflowers are particularly good in that area being drier, you know, it's amazing the environment that wildflowers choose to grow in. Always poor soils, and so you'll see a really diverse array of wildflowers through the section from um Thilberbeth Alba's Walkers Camp as you descend down the stairs, and once again you'll have the grass trees and the golden light that comes through those grass trees as you continue to descend. If you're walking that early in the morning, is is just magical. And then when you get down to the bottom, you'll reach um Jurella Creek. So you'll be walking along the creek for quite a while. This is more of a challenging day, once again, walking wise, it's still graded three and four, but you have five creek crossings to do on this day. Now, there's only one of them where you're actually walking in the creek bed. All of the other have um little easements for you to walk over or bridges, um, depending on the water flow. So it's very rare that you'll get your feet wet. But there is one creek crossing where um it may only be a dry creek bed, but it does go on for a little while, and it uh you do have to spend a little bit of time trying to work out where you exit that creek. You can't possibly get lost in that section, but the track it's the one area on the whole four days that isn't clearly defined just for a little bit in that uh natural creek crossing where you're walking on a creek bed and then you you're walking once again, you're through the rainforest, go crisscrossing the creek, back and forth, lots of lovely places to stop and have a bit of a dip in the water, have a bit of a food break, um, you know, get some more energy into your body because when you start ascending out of the creek area up through the rainforest, once again, you know, there's a little bit of elevation to gain there, um, and so some people find that a bit tiring.
SPEAKER_01And so I forgot to ask, day three and day four, what sort of kilometre range have we got there? I'll give you a moment um to look at that.
SPEAKER_00Um so day th day three is 13.1 kilometres, so that's a really easy day. Day four is 16.7, so it's similar to day one. So day one and day four are the hardest days if you're choosing to do that um that second half with the loop walking it clockwise. And as I said, I'm when I'm finishing, I'm commonly exiting at the Leafy Lane Trailhead. Um, so that's where I like to exit there.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and so that's the traditional four days from end to end. So Baroon Pocket Dam, and as you'll say, to the Leafy Lane car parking area.
SPEAKER_00Which which is situated the closest town to Leafy Lane Leafy Lane Trailhead, all that exit area is Mapleton. A lot of people will choose to go to the pub after that for a bit of a lunch or a bit of a dinner, but yeah, a bit of a celebration.
SPEAKER_01It sounds to me like they're quite different. You know, day one and two is a bit different to day three and four.
SPEAKER_00Yes, they're completely different. The first two days, you know, you really are immersed in the beautiful rainforest. And uh on day one, the last time I walked it with a girlfriend, we actually saw a koala and he was right on the trail and climbed up a tree, you know, right next to the trail. We had to give him sp some space and walk around him. So those first two days are very much all about the rainforest, and the second two days are very different, they're in much drier areas for the most part, and and you have the escarpment walking up to the escarpment along the ridgeline and along the top of the escarpment, and then down through the hills until you reach the rainforest, and then you have a little bit of rainforest in the end. But you have all of the beautiful tall Sydney blue gums, so they're the really tall ones with the white trunks, and they tower over you, and it's absolutely beautiful. But yes, day one and two, rainforest, day three and four is gum trees and escarpment and banksiers and completely different drier environment.
SPEAKER_01So it's quite possible to do these as two completely separate walks, but you're going to need a good full four days if you want to do it end-to-end, about that 80k mark, isn't it? With all of them in total.
SPEAKER_00Yes, you would carry four days of food. Um, you know, work out, you might have had breakfast before you start on day one, so you don't have to carry that, and you might finish at lunchtime on day four, depending on your hiking skills and when you leave. So you might not have to carry all you know all the food components of for the four days, but just remembering it, there's opportunities to capture water and filter it at each of the walkers' camp. I also when um I also tend to capture the water from the creeks. If if I feel that I want to do that, once again I filter it. Um you can also use the water purification tablets. So there's not really the need to carry a lot of water each day because there's multiple opportunities every single day to capture and filter the water.
SPEAKER_01Fantastic. And I and I guess if you wanted to add a little bit of extra walking, there are those towns that you're passing by within sort of a couple of kilometres that if you know, mid-afternoon, if you really didn't want to carry too much food, you could pop out into a town and a pub to to get some food and get back on the trail. It's it's it is a little bit off the track, but it's not totally out of the question.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I would say the best opportunity to do that would be um as you're on day one when you're passing through Condolilla and coming out there, there are a number of like Airbnbs, there is a restaurant there, um, so you could choose to do sort of good glamping. I suppose you could choose to have paid accommodation if you wanted for one of the nights of the four. If you were doing a four-day section, I do know some hikers do tend to do that if it's a special girlfriend's trip and you know, birthdays or whatever, you can do that. Um, and likewise, Mapleton at on day three, four, you also have that opportunity if you so desire.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay, that's great. So um, but mostly you're gonna be carrying in food for four days or two days, whichever one you choose. Water's taken care of. What's from a safety perspective, what what's the access like um with your mobile phone? Have it you know, are you worried about communication or is that is the signal fairly good all the way?
SPEAKER_00No, uh it's one of the walks where the signal is very reliable at for numerous points on every single day. So in my situation, um I have four safety contacts who track my progress every single day. I write a hike plan before I start every single hike, and that's communicated and and um have edited maps and all of that sort of thing. So my safety contacts receive my hike plan with the maps. I know exactly what routes I'm using. I always hike with a PLB GPS tracker, and in my case, I have a spot device Gen 4. I have my mobile phone and that has satellite SOS functioning now where you with the Apple phones you can send a satellite message, but you can also communicate directly with emergency services. Say if you had a significant fall, um, got concussion or broke a leg. Using the satellite method on your phone is actually a really great way to communicate with the SES or the emergency services, and the reason for that is all of your safety contacts that are nominated on your phone, they see exactly all of the communication that you have with emergency services. So emergency services will ask you a number of questions and you will answer them, and your safety contacts receive exactly that so they know exactly what's happening. So yeah, safety-wise, I choose to check in numerous times each day. Um, I talk a little bit about how I'm finding it, whether I'm getting tired, and there's a number of reasons why I personally choose to do that. Um, and and yeah, so I very much a safety girl first type of hiker. I'm a solo hiker, I tend to hike about 95% of my time um solo, so I think covering your safety is really important, and there are a lot of stairs, particularly in day one and two, and then on that fourth day as you're descending from um from Philbathalba, thank you. Down, there's a lot of stairs, and if you're choosing to, or if you've booked campsites and you and you you have to book campsites, I should say, but if your dates that you've selected coincide with really poor weather, the track will be notoriously muddy and very, very slippery, and so um in those situations I definitely will slow my pace considerably. I'll be using my hiking poles and be very careful with my foot placement to try and minimise any risk of any risk of injury.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm glad you reminded us of the SOS function because we talked about it on the Mount Barney episode, and it's something that everybody should spend, you know, if they're hiking solo or they're just hiking in more remote areas, just get that set up so that you understand how it works because it's a really, really good function that we've got now for our safety. Now, let's talk about um we we're running out of time, but I'm just going to quickly ask you. We talked about shoes before. You said you're walking straight through the creeks, you don't bother taking them off, and yep, just dry socks.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, so I carry three pairs of stock socks, so one for the first day of hiking, um, and yes, I wear trainers, that's my preferred um shoe, and so I will walk straight through the creeks, don't worry about getting my shoes muddy, wet, whatever. And then at night I'll take the socks off, I'll give them a quick rinse out, um, and I have a pair of camp socks, and then I have a new pair of socks for the second day, and that on the second day my first day socks will be hopefully drying, and yeah, so that's how I choose to manage my socks and shoes and shoes. And part of my foot care routine, I think it's really important to wash your feet carefully at the end of each hiking day, um, and it's usually the salt that builds up in your shoes and the moisture that causes the blisters. So, that once again that's why I choose to wash my socks out to remove the salt content there.
SPEAKER_01And the other reason for that is because let's face it, there's leeches on this track, so you want to take particular care of your feet to identify any leeches, not let them sit there overnight and feast on your blood.
SPEAKER_00So absolutely, no, there's different things you can do about that. I I tend to use toe socks, and then I might have a second pair over the top, depending on how much rain we've had and how many, you know, what the leech situation's going to be like. But I always do use an insect repellent, either bushman's or uh rid, and I'm not spraying it on my skin, I'm spraying it over my shoes and socks, and the lower part of my hiking pants. And I wear I choose to wear full-length trousers and also of a long sleeve shirt for some protection as well, but it also on the bottom half, it also helps with the leeches, and then gaiters. I use to just use little either dirty girl gaiters or the ultra trail runner gaiters, just the little ones that cover your ankles. I don't feel like you need the longer ones up to your knees at all. It's not muddy like Tasmania mud, but um, yes, just having different lays of protection from the leeches is a very good strategy.
SPEAKER_01Alright, that's fantastic. Jenny, we're going to wrap up with the one spot on the trail that you're standing and you're thinking, this is what it's all about. This is the view that I've come for. I suspect I know from your comments earlier, but I'll leave it up to you to say what's your favourite view.
SPEAKER_00Yes, my favourite part is uh definitely Baxter Creek Falls with this is it's the combination of the suspension bridge and the view you get as you're walking down to the suspension brick bridge with the big tree ferns, um, but also looking out onto the creek as you're crossing it, and then you have the falls just before that. I that's my personal favourite. Number one, can't miss that um that little bit, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01All right, that's fantastic. Jenny, I really appreciate your time today because you're so busy hiking and going so many places, but to share your experiences is really appreciated. Like I said, it's one, it's a trail that I think that is a great one for everyone to test out an overnight camp and just a beautiful one right in our backyard. So thank you for the time, and I look forward to speaking to you in future episodes.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you. It's been absolutely wonderful. Have a great day, everyone, and happy hiking.