McGlashan Challenge

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First of all, I would like to thank everyone who was involved in organising and helping me run my McGlashan Challenge. 

I chose the Stroke Foundation because many people I know have suffered strokes. This made me realise just how important it is to support organisations that work tirelessly to prevent strokes and help those who are affected. Here in New Zealand, over 10,000 people suffer a stroke every year—that’s an average of 27 people a day. And by 2028, that number is expected to rise to 38 per day.

Even though it wasn’t easy, it's something I look back on and see as one of the best things I could have done during school. It took me out of the comfort of 100m into a 61 km trail with 2,059m of total elevation and amazing views. We were up by 5 am and starting at 6. We chose to climb Mt Luxemore first, so by the time we reached Luxemore Hut at 1085m of elevation, the trampers were getting ready to leave. We continued climbing for a couple of hours until we got to the ridge which was amazing. The visibility wasn’t the best as it was cloudy, but we still had pretty nice views. The cloud meant the sun wasn’t draining our energy, which we were grateful for. 

We tried to stop for lunch at the last shelter before going downhill, but we were just getting eaten alive by sandflies so we decided to go down and stop at Iris Burns's hut, which is about halfway. After lunch, we began the second half of the trail which was surprisingly harder than the first 30km. The second half was all flat but we were beginning to get tired and everything was very much the same, unlike the constantly changing views we had before.  After 11 hours and 22 minutes of moving time, we finally returned to the control gates which was an amazing feeling. 

Hopefully, this year there will be more McGlashan Challenges so if you want any advice or need help planning, feel free to come and find me and I’ll do all I can to help.