Last year, when I was on my health kick and before my fatigue really went off the rails and became a crippling dizzying mess, I was going on lots of walks. Spurred on by the advice of my exercise physiologist, who said it was good that I walked so much but that I really should try walking up hills instead of just going around the lake and around my flat suburb, and motivated by the gorgeous spring weather, I took to the hills, which in Canberra are numerous and not at all far away.

Using posts from In the Taratory for walking inspiration, I made several treks up Mt Majura (I didn’t make it to the top as I kept getting lost! I now know the way though), Mt Ainslie and Mt Painter (which was my favourite, as it was a perfect ‘midweek mountain’ with stunning sunsets), and had plans to do Red Hill, Mt Taylor, the Arboretum and The Pinnacle… but then things went kaput. I tried to walk Mt Ainslie one day and only got a little way up before feeling absolutely awful, and then everything was quite literally downhill from there. At the moment, a 30 minute stroll around Dickson is pushing it.

Anywayyyyy I just wanted to share these pretty phone photos of some of the new and pretty places I discovered during my brief mountain climbing phase. Hopefully I’ll be back in action soon!

This short-lived climbing phase was actually kind of liberating, realising that I actually could climb these big mountains in just a morning or an afternoon. I think I had subconsciously convinced myself that I wasn’t fit enough to do it, and just hadn’t even thought about it, and then was pleasantly surprised when I could. I’m also deathly afraid of snakes (and also massive kangaroos when I am by myself–I got terrified a few times by giant roos on Mt Majura!) so had probably also been using that as an excuse. But part of me also now wonders–did I overdo it? Is this part of what tipped me from tired to trainwreck?