Our heroes this week are the team trekking the Bay of Fires in Tasmania this week for Shake It Up.
The team has 14 participants, Marion, Jess, May, Troy, Peter, Brian, Kevin, Jenny, Penny, Jody, Grace, Heather, John and Shake It Up’s Executive General Manager Vicki, who all trekked for 5 days along the challenging Tasmanian coastline with zero phone and internet reception. A truly isolating and intimate experience!
Together, the team have gone above and beyond with their fundraising, smashing their personal targets, and raising an incredible $105,095 for Parkinson’s so far. We thank the team for their hard work fundraising, as well as the generous support of their friends and family.
We’d also like to acknowledge and thank those who were originally booked into the trek but were unable to go for their fundraising efforts which contributed to the total: Steve, Greta, Aaron and Kerrie, David Hynd and David Cox and Sandy.
The team are also grateful for the support of Tassie Forest Waters, who are sponsoring the trip with water provisions.
Vicki kept a blog of their journey. Have a read below.
Day 1
We started our day in the beautiful coastal town of Bridport with a short walk through an Australian wildflower track down to the beach. Our guises are very knowledgeable on Australian flora and fauna and we stopped regularly to look at interesting plant species and birds along the way. Reaching the coastline we saw our first Red rocks famous in the Bay Of Fires with beautiful views across to Flinders Island. Back on the bus and an hours drive across to the north east coast and checked into our accommodation at Icena farm and then headed out to a beach walking track. This was our first glimpse of the endless white sandy beaches that we are going to be seeing over the next five days. An 8 km walk along beautiful coastline with lots of Wallabies watching us carefully from the grass embankments. Turquoise blue ocean, crystal clear water, lots of interesting sea life washed up on the shores and our very knowledgeable guides telling us what each piece was. So interesting! We finished our day at a campsite filled with Wallabies many of whom had little Joeys in their pouches. A great start to the week and we were blessed with stunning weather.
Day 2
After a warmup hike on day one our guides really got us into it on day two. We started with a short drive across to the coast and onto our first beautiful beach walk. Sand as white as chalk and the start of the magnificent orange rocks that the north east coast of Tasmania is famous for. Lots of adventure today with beach walking and rockclimbing walking through very deep rivers crossing Gorges long bushwalks and finally an ascent up to the top of my Mount William for magnificent 360° views around this beautiful part of Tasmania. We clocked up around 16 km today and were all exhausted but thoroughly enjoyed our day. Back to Icena farm for a roast lamb dinner cooked by our guides who had been up working since 6 am this morning. We are getting to know one another now creating bonds and learning more about each participants connection to Parkinsons. Looking forward to what day three has in store!!
Day 3
Day three again a beautiful morning blue sunshine and crystal clear waters. We started today at Deep Creek and walked along more beautiful white sandy beaches lots of rock climbing today over picnic rocks with sights of seals and dolphins more Wallabies and a sacred indigenous midden site along the way. We reached Eddystone point Lighthouse a spectacular site built from granite taken from a quarry around the base of the site. Absolutely spectacular and then we climbed down the rock face to the most magnificent crystal clear swimming hole surrounded by Bay Of Fires red rocks. A truly spectacular site and we finished with a short walk along another beautiful white sandy beach back to our bus. This really is an amazing experience and as we get to know each other better we are having so much fun supporting one another over rock climbs and in awe of our guides who are so knowledgeable and passionate about their environment.
Day 4
Today was a long day and probably one of the most challenging so far. We started again on the southern side of EddyStone point Lighthouse on a beautiful white sandy beach and had a lovely long beach walk on another beautiful sunny day with turquoise blue waters. There was lots of rock climbing today as we navigate our way around each point to the next glorious stretch of beach. Sand so white and fine and we also came across beautiful shell coves inches deep with thick shells that had washed up from the ocean. More wildlife today, wallabies, a massive sea eagle hovering above us and we were whale watching but disappointingly did not see any whales migrating south. Each headland today had massive rock shapes that all resembled different types of animals so we had fun deciding which animal was which shape with everything from dinosaurs to turtles whales and barbecue chickens! We stopped for lunch at a beautiful little cove deep inside a rock gorge with fine white sand and crystal clear water and number of the guides had a swim in the ocean. No participants were brave enough to go into the cool waters. After lunch we headed up and over into some bush tracks down through a marsupial lawn, over a massive sand dune which worked every muscle group, and then probably the least pleasant part of our trek was through mud and water that was knee deep to get to dry land where the vehicle was waiting to collect us. As usual the guides were there with hot tea and coffee and cakes and biscuits to replenish us as we sat down and reflected on another fabulous day trekking through the Bay Of Fires.
