On Friday 16th March 2018, eight Miriam Vale residents including four staff from the Miriam Vale Primary School will be taking a hike – a very, very long hike: 60km in one day – as they take part in the Sydney Coastrek raising funds for the Fred Hollows Foundation.
Shayna Pender, one of the walkers, says the experience will take them across all terrains and past all the iconic sights in Sydney.
The trek takes walkers from Bondi Beach to Manly Beach, including across the Sydney Harbour Bridge:
“We’ll be climbing unforgiving hills, ascending hundreds of stairs, pushing through bush tracks & walking in soft sand. But there is a good reason that will keep us going to the finish line,”
“We’re taking on this Challenge to support the Fantastic work of The Fred Hollows Foundation to end avoidable blindness by fundraising $4000.”
With only just under a month to go in the teams’ training the women are waking up as early as 2am to walk up to 45 kilometres through the night time landscape of Miriam Vale.
Their training so far has consisted of road walking, sand walking and a 27km training walk, with a 45km walk planned for a fortnight before the event.
“Living out of town our walks are mainly on dirt & gazetted roads around Miriam Vale,” Shayna said. “We’ve seen a lot of the local wildlife,” she said.
The two Miriam Vale teams “Tramps Like Us” (Barbara Bryant, Bec Hancock, Bernadette Coster, and Karla Irvine) and “Tramps Like Them” (Nikki Wingate, Shayna Pender, Billie-Jo McGregor and Lyn Harms) are both well on the way to achieving their goal of $2000 but for such a good cause, more sponsors are welcome.