Real Trail Talk

Donovan and Mark discuss their 2025 adventures, highlights, lowlights, answer your questions, and run through the yearly topics.

We are joined by Expedition Leader, Ecologist, Hiker, and Mum, Dr Kate Grarock to discuss everything to do with hiking with kids. With Donovan and Kate both becoming parents in the last few years, we talk about the joys, challenges, funny moments, and all the considerations that go into hiking with small children.

We made it to 100 episodes, and to celebrate we take a look back at the past eight years of the podcast, talk about the journey, our favourite moments, and then answer your questions.

Thank you to everyone that has listened to us ramble on about trails and hiking over the years, it really is appreciated when you reach out with questions, feedback or general comments.

It's that time again, where Donovan and Mark sit down and discuss their 2024 adventures, where they visited, what they did, and how they felt about the year. 

Visit The Long Ways Better here

Visit The Life of Py here

Donovan hiked a six day stretch of the Australian Alps Walking Track (AAWT) in 2024 between Kiandra and Kosciuszko, and we sit down to have a chat about the experience. 

From historic huts to stunning alpine terrain, there is plenty to enjoy along this hike, although Donovan did encounter some challenges that we discuss during the episode.

Donovan chats to Kevin Moss aka Goin Feral about the Australian Triple Crown, the Australian Alps Walking Trail (AAWT), Heysen Trail and Bibbulmun Track. Kevin completed all three trails in 2024, and discusses what makes them different, his experiences on all three, and how they compare.

After releasing his first book in 2023, Best Walks of South West WA, Mark has a follow-up book titled Best Walks of South Coast WA.

Covering the stunning walks between Walpole and Cape Arid, and everything in-between, there are 42 trails ranging from coastal hikes to mountain climbs.

Get your copy today by visiting Mark's Online Store, using the code RTT10 to get a further 10% off the new book. 

With a plethora of national parks and stunning scenery in the Northern Territory, we sit down and discuss the hiking options going from the north to the south. 

In this episode we discuss what makes a good trail, ranging design, experience, scenery, facilities and everything in-between. On top of that we talk about why we like trails so much, and what goes into a great trail experience in our opinion. 

One of our favourite episodes of the year, we discuss our 2023 Adventures by going through what we enjoyed, what we didn't, and then some answer some listener questions. Thank you everyone who has tuned in during 2023, we really appreciate it.

We are joined by Steve Sertis from the Bibbulmun Track Foundation to discuss the journey of what went into the 25th Anniversary End to End Walk. Steve shares some great stories, explains the challenges of organising the event, and reflects on the Bibbulmun and the wonderful community that supports it.

Continuing on with our discussion about the South Coast Track, this episode sees Bronwyn return as we chat about the final three days on this stunning week long hike in the Tasmanian Wilderness.

In January 2023, Donovan, Mark and Bonny completed the South Coast Track in Tasmania and we sit down to discuss the first four days on this rugged adventure in the remote wilderness of Southwest National Park. 

We are back!!! While we have taken a break from podcasting for the latter half of 2022, we were still out exploring. As we discuss, there have been some big changes to our lives in 2022 (Donovan especially) and so we've sat down to have a chat about everything that happened. 

We are joined by Aron aka 1A1R to discuss the final section of the Munda Biddi Trail between Denmark and Albany before chatting about Mark and Aron's E2E back in September 2021.

It's been a weird and disrupted year so we sit down to discuss the past 12 months, our adventures, our thoughts and then answer your questions.