Well I feel like I accomplished a lot in 2018!

My major achievement was finally completing the Great North Walk. I smashed out over 150km of it’s length this year including a four day stretch through some very challenging terrain. I saw a koala in the wild for the first time as well as lots of kangaroos, wallabies and a few wombats. It was an amazing feeling reaching the Obelisk at the end of the trail. I had begun the walk at a smaller obelisk at the start of the trail in Sydney three years earlier and the trail has dominated my planning ever since. I’m struggling to fix on the next goal. Something will come to me.

My second achievement was completing my 12 Hike Challenge. I laid out 12 different hikes to be completed one by one over twelve months. It was satisfying to see so many people also take up the challenge although only a few seem to have persevered to the end and at least one person is about midway though.

I designed the challenge to help me complete the great North Walk so in that regard it was a huge success. I was also able to tick off the three highest peaks in Australia, visited a cave, and spent some awesome time with my son visiting a waterfall and an island. Some images are below. I had many smaller adventures too, not all of which made it to the blog. I’ll pull together my 2019 plan shortly and post separately.

My third achievement this year was to host my first guest blogger. Anthony Grace walked the Overland track with his wife and was eager to share his story so I was happy to provide a platform. I also now want to go and do this track!

My fourth achievement, which seems so long ago now, was to receive an amazing opportunity to write for Bushwalk magazine. I took up the challenge and wrote a piece on why I blog. It was lots of fun!

Lastly I expanded my social media presence with the creation of a YouTube channel. I have two subscribers… Still it’s a good spot to put the videos that I’m starting to make and I’ve had some positive feedback from those who have had a look.

My WordPress blog continues to grow in readership – over 7000 views at time of writing for 2018. Instagram is up to 568 followers and I’m allowing that to grow organically and my under-utilised Facebook page now has 71 followers. Facebook has proven to be handy for connecting with people and I’ve had a few offers to head out on walks but haven’t taken anyone up on it yet. I’ll need to change that next year and be a bit more flexible as some of the offers are very enticing!

I’m not actively seeking readers or followers, I’d rather just write my content and have people who are genuinely interested read it and maybe follow along. Though I may need to improve my Facebook stats!

I hope you all had a fun year. Thank you everyone for reading and commenting, liking and sharing and following along. I’m looking forward to 2019!