BEST ONE WEEK WALK IN EUROPE – the pictures

Crossing the Lac des Vaches, with the Grande Casse in the background.

I’d done parts of this walk before – along the GR5 and the GR55, but this was the first time I’ve tackled the whole six-day Tour des Glaciers in the Parc de la Vanoise, the oldest national park in France.

From beginning to end it’s spectacular. Here’s the photographic evidence…

WALKING WITH HERETICS

It’s a steep pull up to the ruined castle at Montsegur. It’s nearly as tough bumping downhill on our ageing knees. The view makes it all worthwhile.

The site of a bloody religious war is now a gentle, but spectacular walking route through some of France’s  most beautiful countryside.

KURINGAI NATIONAL PARK – a new walk (for me)

Resolute Bay, Kuringai National Park. Where are all the people?

‘We do live in an amazingly beautiful city, don’t we?’ says my friend and hiking companion Duncan.

How could I not agree? We’re sitting on rocks by a beautiful beach with spotless sand, surrounded by spectacular forest. We’ve just been admiring millennia-old Aboriginal rock carvings. It’s the peak summer holiday period and we’re less than an hour’s drive from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, technically still inside the city limits.  Yet we have it all to ourselves.

A PARADISE FOR PRISONERS AND DEVILS?

If every day could be like this, I’d almost be content to stay for the term of my natural life.

Many of the first white residents could wait to get off Maria Island.

Convicts transported here in 1825 built Aboriginal-style canoes, begged or bribed whaling ships to give them a ride or tried their luck on the swim across the strait to mainland Tasmania, a few kilometres away. To see the island now, you wonder where they’d rather have been.

A WELL-GUARDED BLUE MOUNTAINS SECRET

A photo op over the Grose Valley.

I’ve finally found time to venture out of Sydney, into the Blue Mountains. I thought I knew them well, but I didn’t know about this hidden treasure.

TREKKING MOROCCO – drama and a little danger

Click on this photo and look carefully, and you may be able to see the mules coming to our rescue.

The little log and stick bridge is supported by sandbags at each end. It has sagged onto the surface of the muddy river, its waters swollen by melting snow from the surrounding peaks. It has no handrail.

Local children skip over its 15-metre span. Village women stoically struggle across, carrying absurdly large bundles of animal fodder on their backs.

Nobody seems to have any trouble. Until it’s our turn – six Dutch hiking friends, one Australian and our Berber guide Khalid, two hours into our five-day trek through the foothills of Morocco’s High Atlas range.