I made it. When I returned, I stuck to high hell, but I made it.

Believe it or not, I made it. I walked the Overland Track AND enjoyed it. For the last six days I've been on Tasmania (no, I didn't see any devils) walking an average of 5-6 hours a day. The whole trail is 81k (50.5 miles for you imperialists) and with side trips, it was 89k. For a bit of reference, that's like walking from my house in Long Island to 5 miles west of Hoboken, uphill, in the mud, with 25 pounds on my back. Sometimes, if I was "lucky", it rained.

The scenery was pretty cool, lakes and mountains, etc. Every half hour we were walking through a new environment. Sometimes mossy covered forest (very LOTR for geeks out there) to wide open moors, to quiet streams, to gum trees galore. An added bonus was the potential for leeches- everyone seemed to attract one but me, which made me nervous it crawled somewhere I didn't see.... ick.

The most incredible part of the walk was actually not the views (impressive) or the forest (I was called Pippin on one occasion), but the fact that I was able to push my body to such limits and still enjoy it. I'm not super fit and this was a serious walk, requiring a lot of energy and gumption. I was able to see a change in the way my body reacted to the amount of physical strain.

I'm beat today, but I think I would enjoy doing a walk like this again- possibly on my own. It was wise this time to get on an organized walk (our guides had done it over 55 times combined) because I couldn't possibly have carried all the gear and food on my own, and I definately didn't have the the knowledge. I do feel that I could walk into the wilderness for 3-4 days on my own now and feel like I wasn't going to get into serious trouble.

Maybe I will have to undertake a walk somewhere in Oregon when I get back to the States...