Doing my last Trailwalker (this time I really mean it!)
Last year I gathered my strength and what remained of my friends (the hard-walking Kath O’Shea, Tony Burrett and Peter Crowe on trail, supported by the generous and thoughtful David Glover and Tim Lumsdaine) to complete my 10th Oxfam Trailwalker Sydney 100km. It happened to be the last held in Sydney, and, I thought, a fitting end to an event I’d first done 20 years ago.
Then, I heard that this year’s Oxfam Trailwalker Melbourne 2024 would be the final Trailwalker in Australia, and Tony Burrett and I had a wonderful time knocking over the 35km course, supported (although due to my mistakes, mostly in spirit) by Jeremy Spradbery.
So that was TWICE I’d thought I’d done my last Trailwalker. Done. Dusted. But Trailwalker had other plans for me!
At a dinner earlier this week with the Oxfam Australia team I learned that this weekend, Oxfam Trailwalker New Zealand will be held for the last time, in New Plymouth. And thanks to some very generous concessions from the Trailwalker organisers and the very understanding Kath O’Shea, as of 7am this morning, I am now registered to compete in My Last Oxfam Trailwalker Ever, Number Three!
(I’m either doing the 25km or the 50km course — it’s all happened so rapidly, I’m not totally sure yet.)
Obviously I’m doing this one primarily for personal reasons of an endurance-addiction nature, but that doesn’t change the fact that Oxfam Trailwalker is an important source of charitable donations to allow Oxfam to continue its important work, which seeks to provide people in marginalised and endangered communities with the skills and resources they need to build a better life for themselves. Unlike so many other international aid charities, Oxfam is free of a religious, moral or political agenda behind its field work too, which is why I choose to donate to them every year.
If you’d like to join me to make a tax-deductible donation to Oxfam after reading this, here’s my fundraising page:
https://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.nz/alan-jones
