Bushwalk Australia

We did it!

Just after Easter we headed to Lees Paddocks with three little boys - 4, 7 and 9. The intention was to camp overnight at Lees Paddocks, but we got there at lunchtime on a dull cold day and, as the kids seemed sprightly, we decided to proceed up the Venetian Blind Track to see how the kids handled it. They loved it, it was like a giant treasure hunt racing up the hill looking for markers, so we decided to press on.

In hindsight that was a mistake. Everyone we had passed on our way in had said that the track at the top was "no trouble" but for kids it is HARD. The ground is mush a lot of the way, and the kerosene bush and other spiky shrubs are at face height for the kids, so we were hours and hours pushing through all this. Finally made it onto the duck board at twilight, and into Pelion just after dark. By that time the kids were not quite so sprightly and they were cold. Thank goodness for really good sleeping bags and other good gear. We got them warm and fed, and they were pretty pleased with themselves after a mammoth 8 hour walk (6-7 hours for an adult).

They were less pleased with Mum and Dad the next morning when they realised that the only way out was to retrace our steps. We had no provisions for an extra day at Pelion, plus we were pretty sure the weather was going to turn the day after (this turned out to be correct).

Would I do this again, or recommend it? No, at least not with provisions for an extra day if one is needed. If we'd had a crisis we'd have had to split up and one adult and maybe one of the older kids would have had to walk out, get food and then an adult would have had to walk back in on a rescue mission. We should have planned for this event, but as our original plan was only to walk 3 hours into Lees Paddocks we hadn't planned well enough for the much harder walk to Pelion.

But we made it, so all's well that ends well. And we've lived to tell the tale. It is a good hard walk for kids, but if anyone is thinking of doing this please plan better than we did! Give youselves a rest day at Pelion, or stay at Lees Paddocks on the way in or out.

That sounds like some good advice from the voice of experience. I hope it doesn't put your kids of wanting to do it again some time.

I'm certainly paying attention to this as my kids are going to be of that sort of age in a few short years time, and I'll be wanting to take them walking occasionally. It seems to me that kids are able to exert huge amounts of energy for a while, but when they eventually do get tired they crash-and-burn in a big way. I guess they just haven't learned to pace themselves yet.

When the time comes, I think I'll initially only take the kids on walks that I'm very familiar with myself, or walks that I'm very sure of by some other research. I've no idea how I'll attempt to judge whether the kids are up to it or not, except that learning from your experience, I'll just start with very easy/short, and progress to longer/harder walks very gradually.

Absolutely the best approach in my opinion. That was our intention. Our older two kids (9 and 7) had done a 2-day walk in the Royal National Park in Sydney (28km) and they managed fine. But the little one hadn't walked before, and our intention was to give him an easy start. But my husband is very experienced in the northern Tassie region and once he realised that we were within a day's walk of Pelion there was no persuading him otherwise.

I think he learned a few things along the way. We have agreed that the next walk needs to be much easier so that the kids can go on a walk they actually enjoy, and have some relaxation time at the end of the day instead of the entire thing being a huge physical challenge. Me . . . I learned not to trust his decision-making quite so much LOL!

Yeah, another point to consider is that it's important to give kids a good experience (as much as circumstances allow), and a bad experience has the potential to put them off next time, such that they are grumpy about the whole trip next time no matter how good the trip actually is (I remember being this kind of irritating grumpy kid myself, some time ago ).