Follow my site which as checkins and photos for the whole journey: https://myfkt.run/app/track
I set off at 7:05am from the Obelisk monument at Circular Quay Sydney ready to catch a 7:15am ferry to Woolwhich. From there I made the long trip up to Brooklyn where I caught a private water taxi for the crossing to Patonga around 9:20pm. From there the slog was real as I worked through the Central Coast and the Watagans to Newcastle. I was lucky to have pacers from the Terrigal Trotters and the Berowra Bushrunners join.
You could not read about it, while standing at the top of Heatons Gap we bumped into Burt Kennedy, the one way GNW record holder and the only person ever to have previously completed the GNW Out and Back. It was great to talk to him and hear about his 2019 completion. He said he did the first leg in 60 hours, would you believe, I arrived in Newcastle (opposite direction to Burt) in exactly 60 hours. From the turn around things got back quickly and my hallucinations were beyond control forcing an emergency 2 hour sleep at Teralba and then again at Cedar Brush Track head. I made it down to catch the private water taxi which I booked for Thu morning at 6am. I cut it fine after going all night again with no sleep to arrive at Patonga around 5:15am.
Stupidly, I pushed through what I thought might be the final day with no sleep (5 days in - very dumb). At that point I had only had a little over 6 hours sleep. I was fine till Crosslands and then the wheels feel off and needed another emergency 2hour nap at Thornleigh.
I had issues with my phone battery by the time I got to Berowra Waters and took over an hour stop to stop my recording on Gaia maps on my phone and to spin up a new recording from Berowra to Crosslands on my neighbour's phone, by the time I got to Crosslands, he had recharged and got my phone working again, so I stopped his phone and started recording again on my phone, hence the fact there are 3 gpx files. These files include the river crossings on them and capture the route in full.
I used my Coros Vertix 2 to record the entire trip without issue. I chose not to record the water crossings on my watch as it would have flagged the Strava file as having motorised transport.
I had great crew and pacer support for the entire 6 day journey and have a huge collection of nearly approximately 150 photos and videos. I am looking to make a documentary on this FKT at some point soon. Similarly I am keen for other to use the site I created to track their FKTs as it worked so well in real time allowing people to see my live position on a map at any point and have it compared to my planned pace and the current record pace.
When the documentary is complete, I'll post a link here in the comments. There are so many stories from this FKT that need to be told, from the hired motorhome we had that broke down after day 1, meaning we lived out of a car for almost a week, through to the crazy hallucinations - where I even took photos of lichen on rocks to prove to my sane self they were faces ... turns out they were just lichen on a rock! We had a full tide at Merewhether beach and were forced to scramble high on the rocks to get safely through. I saw snakes (in winter), wombats sprinting, wallabies jumping but thankfully avoided leech bites.
I can't thank enough my crew and pacers, they were incredible and got me through some really dark times. In particular, Margie, you are the best. I can't believe how above and beyond you went to support me and make this a reality. Thank you.