The Reasons

I wanted to repeat the ski traverse in 2022 for a number of reasons. For sure the challenge of pushing my ageing body through it again a quarter of a century on, but to celebrate the Australian snow country that has been so good to and for me for so long. To celebrate not only the backcountry, but the resorts and communities that live for the white stuff. To celebrate but also to consider the threats to our fragile alpine landscape. From climate change, from feral animals, from us.

As a long time Ambassador for Save the Children, Alpine Odyssey was the key part of my latest fundraiser for this amazing charity. This included them being the beneficiary of my year-long circumnavigation of the Mediterranean from Gallipoli back to Gallipoli in 2014-15.

I set out to raise $50,000 for Our Yarning. In brief, this project produces books for Indigenous Australian children, written and illustrated by Indigenous authors, telling Indigenous stories, stories that are so important to retain in Australian culture. You can see more about Our Yarning and my fundraising here.

Without a doubt the success of the fundraising was as important to me as the success of my journey and I was more than stoked when the target was well exceeded with $65,000 raised thanks to the generosity of so many.

This was a journey too about passion. The Australian alpine country has held me in its thrall for the past 35 years. Australia’s highest land on the world’s flattest continent is a very special place. A wombat might shuffle nonchalantly across the snow and, while it does, a pair of crimson rosellas flash across the marbled, ice-rimed trunk of a snowgum. Steep, cliff lined gullies surprise all those who see or ski them the first time.

Skiing itself has reduced me to tears of joy more often than any of the other adventure activities I enjoy. I’ve cried them on summits and at the base of glorious runs in mountains across the world, but I have cried them most often here in Australia.