Our two Australian coordinators, Mark Allaway and Jill Lancashire are planning a charity walk for the benefit of the Global Tree Initiative! The event is called “Walk for the Trees 2023”.
The walk will take place closer to the end of March this year.

Mark is motivated and committed to walk for four days, and cover a total distance of around 90 Kilometers! Mark already has his first sponsor. He told us that “Jill has promised me $1 per Kilometer if I survive!”

Have a look at the route planned for the walk:

So far, Mark will be accompanied by a fellow walker, Ken Fox, and Jill Lancashire, driving the support vehicle. Ken is also part of our Australian tree-planting community.

If you want to pledge any amount per Kilometer or make a donation to this event, please get in touch with Mark and Jill and ask them how to get involved. Or, join the walk and accompany Mark on this adventure!

More updates and details to follow soon!

You can support Mark’s fundraiser here!

Email:
Mark@PlantGrowSave.org
Jill@PlantGrowSave.org

Mark and Ken planting at Atisha Centre, Australia.

Mark shares these notes with us, to have a better understanding of this event:

1 My city, Melbourne, is a vast metropolis and difficult to negotiate by foot so we have opted on Day 1 to walk to my nearest railway station (1km) and catch a metro-train to Southern Cross Station (11kms) in the CBD and then catch a regional train to Diggers Rest (36kms). A distance of about 48 kilometers. This should take under 2hrs. Diggers Rest takes its name from large numbers of gold miners who walked and camped outside Melbourne on their way to the Central Goldfields at Bendigo.

2. We will depart Caulfield around dawn (March 27 = approx. 6.48am). From Diggers Rest we will depart by foot on local roads, avoiding the Calder Freeway (which parallels the route to Kyneton). Local roads are relatively safer but still busy and a bit precarious for walkers. We will be wearing yellow Hi-Viz safety vests.

3. Diggers Rest to Gisborne is approx. 29 kilometers and a very big first day to walk that distance in about 9-10 hrs with breaks, in good weather. The weather at this time of year is the best for walking – relatively dry ( before autumn rains) and mild from daily 19 to low 20s degrees C. Nights can be cool at 7-10 degrees. The route travels from sea level to 600 meters height at Woodend and then descends to 300 meters at Redesdale. The topography is flat to low gentle hills for all of the routes. It crosses the Campaspe River at several points from near Woodend to Redesdale.

4. The overnight stop at Gisborne will be in one of the walker’s relation’s houses (Ken Fox’s cousin). The overnight stop at Woodend with be at a friend’s house. The overnight stop at Kyneton will be on the roadside (as yet undetermined?). The route from Woodend to Kyneton will follow the original 1850’s Cobb and Co. horse carriage route used by the more wealthy miners and settlers going to the goldfields. It passes through a section called the Black Forest near Mt Macedon – a notorious mud track famed for bogged carriages and horses.