Hiking the Larapinta Trail

I last posted on this blog over 6 years ago – Sydney life got busy (I’ve still no regrets about moving here!) and it fell by the wayside, but I’ve kept paying WordPress to keep the site because I thought I might one day come back to it. And here I am – unsure yet if it will become a regular thing again, but I wanted somewhere to write about an amazing 9 days hiking two thirds of the Larapinta Trail, mostly so I don’t forget about it, but a few others may be interested too.

The Larapinta is a challenging but amazingly scenic 223km walking trail that goes west out of Alice Springs, and has been on my bucket list since I travelled to Uluru and Alice with my parents in 2018 – one of my last blog posts before I put this on ice mentions it and the small part of one of the sections we walked together then. For obvious reasons, it needs to be done in the winter, and a combination of other (mostly UK) travel plans and the small matter of COVID have meant it took a while, but I am so glad I made it in the end.

After a lot of umming and ahhing, I decided to do a 9-day 150km “best of” trip with World Expeditions. A guided trip with my luggage carried, rather than carrying all gear including a tent and stove, was a given to make it achievable, but I did originally want to do the whole thing end-to-end. But 14 days felt like a lot since I have never done more than 6 days of hiking in a row, and a lot of time off work as well, whereas 9 days was a smidgen more approachable. A friend who’s walked the trail recommended WorldEx’s itinerary over another company’s, and I took the plunge with the booking in January. I’d heard the trail was tough and was somewhat intimidated by the presence of a 31km day on the itinerary, but I figured that if I committed the cash, I’d do the training required.

In the main, I did do the training and it paid dividends. You never think it’s enough, but until 10 days before departure I felt as fit as I have for several years after a combination of running three times a week, strength training twice a week and a decent day hike most weekends – plus a 4-day solo hike of the Yuraygir Coastal Walk in early June which got some kms into my legs, reminded me what multi-daying is like and gave me confidence in much of my new gear, including my boots.

The last 10 days before I left were fairly disastrous for a combination of reasons, including a big blister on my foot due to new orthotic insoles (and some bad decisions) and a stomach upset which wiped me out for 36 hours and meant I pushed my flight to Alice back 24 hours. But on the day before the trip was due to start, I made it onto a plane and, later that afternoon, to the pre-trip briefing where I met my seven fellow hikers and our two guides, Ollie and Sam.

Of the seven others, six were a group of friends (three couples). This could go either way, I thought, but thankfully it went in a very good way over the next nine days. We were given a brief intro to the walking and a few tips on last minute purchases (including alcohol – which in Alice involves lining up outside the bottle shop to provide ID), pickup was arranged for 7am, and that was that. After dinner at the hotel, an early night, breakfast and some last-minute decisions about what to leave in a bag in Alice versus take on the trail, I boarded the Land Cruiser (or troopie, as it will henceforth be known) with my fellow hikers and we headed west to our start point at Standley Chasm – the exact place I became aware of the trail in 2018.

After the rollercoaster of the previous 10 days, it was suddenly very real – I was doing this thing I’d been thinking about for over 6 years!

Jump to: Part 1 (days 1-3) | Part 2 (days 4-6) | Part 3 (days 7-9)