Blisters, rats and leeches: Surviving the Overland Track in your 50s and 60s

We convince her to push on, after a few of us offer to carry her pack. Just when we think our jellied thighs have given their all, we manage to push, pull and manhandle ourselves and a second pack up the chains. Pack-free, our friend manages the last steep section to arrive at Marions Lookout.

With backpacks dumped and heart rates out of the red zone, we take in the dramatic sights of Dove Lake below, and Cradle Mountain ahead.

But time – and daylight – is ticking on. As we set off after lunch, minus one group member and a guide, a helicopter lands on the rocky outcrop to collect an injured trekker. It’s a surreal reminder that from here on, the only way on or off the Overland is on foot or by chopper.

Skirting Cradle Mountain, we snake deeper into the rugged landscape, leaving the day trippers, almond lattes and mobile coverage behind. Over the next few hours, my two litre water bottle empties, and we push on through terrain that is rocky, narrow and hemmed in by bushes.

The group strings out and rumblings begin among the slower walkers about how they’ll make the next hour let alone the next three days. Who chose this trek? Why didn’t we go with Wineglass Bay, and its relaxing day’s sailing on a private yacht option?

Our walking crocodile continues across an alpine plateau, and when the sun sets, it turns out being the slowest walkers on the Overland comes with a silver, rose and golden lining. High on the ridge, we’re treated to a light display that turns buttery yellow, then orange and finally a flaming pink. For a short while, we’re the lucky ones, exposed to nature’s own Vivid lights show, a spectacle missed by all those other speedy walkers tucked into cabins and tents in the valley below.

With head torches now on, we’ve still got a couple of hours to go, and I’m hit by a dehydration headache, shortly followed by nausea. I focus on keeping my stomach contents in place while navigating the slippery downhill trail, trying not to twist an ankle or crack a rib. We pass the public huts, and eventually, after nine hours on our feet, the Tasmanian Walking Company cabin takes shape in the darkness.

Inside, I lie down on a window seat, guzzling water and ibuprofen, while a search party is raised to find our other guide. She’s still on the track, having set out in the dark along the same route we’d covered.

They find her a short distance from the hut, safe, shaken but not overly stirred. “I was a bit freaked out,” she says. “At times the mist was so thick, I could barely see my hand. And all these red eyes stared at me from the bush.”

The next morning, muscles are sore, but we’re in good shape other than a few blisters. Now that we’re over the shock and awe of the first day, our legs feel more attuned to the weight of the backpacks and the remoteness and the rugged beauty of the Overland starts to seep in.

We walk 12 to 15 kilometres a day, passing through ancient mossy forests, craggy peaks and moorlands, sharing backstories, laughs and occasional tears as we get to know our fellow trekkers.

There’s willowy Skye in her early 50s, funny and warm, who’s with her dad David, a farmer with the love of a yarn and a poem. Then there’s Philip, an Irish-born Sydney executive who one night performs an unexpected rendition of Danny Boy that leaves most in the hut sniffling.

An experienced trekker, he never complains about being held up by our slow pace. Rather, he’s usually hanging out at the rear, chatting, offering advice on the best rock to take, lending a hand over an awkward log. And our guides. Think graceful mountain goats, now add a wide smile and a 25-kilogram pack, and you’re getting close.

Mathilda, 23, and Danah, 29, are intrepid souls who keep us fed, moving, warm and in good humour. They even maintain a straight face as we whinge while lifting our 10-kilogram packs.

My football buddies are a robust bunch, but there are parallels between our trek prep and our pre-season football training – both are patchy. One of us is in borrowed boots, has done no practice walks, yet sails through, with a chamomile tea in one hand, taking photos with the other.

For the most part we’re fit enough to handle the distance, the descents and climbs. But the trails are rough – rooty, rocky and muddy, and sometimes all three at once. On occasions, we inch our way across slippery logs and slog up through creeks.

But some of the toughest challenges arrive in the form of wildlife. On a drizzly day, leeches latch onto ankles, tummies and feet. David finds one attached to his tongue, and a few hours later, Erika wonders if she has something in her eye. But it’s not grit or a twig. Instead, a waving leech is firmly adhered to her left eyeball. It’s eventually dislodged, but that night back at our final hut, more wildlife encounters await.

The guides have forewarned us of a rodent infestation they say can’t be tackled by poison owing to the rats and mice being a native species. Native or otherwise, as soon as the hut lights go out, creatures stream through the ceiling space, the wall cavities and along hallways. My roomie, Erika, who barely flinches with a leech in her eye, hardly sleeps for fear of a set of tiny feet scurrying over her sleeping bag.

The next day is our last, when we leave the Overland Track and head along the Arm River track, a day’s walk as beautiful and as challenging as anything on the Overland.

Eight hours later, we emerge feeling like Amazon women and men. We’ve a sense of achievement that matches the camaraderie that’s grown over the past four days. The Overland is tough. It tests us physically and emotionally, even staying in cabins with hot water and wine.

For our group of mixed-fitness over-50s, we probably chose the wrong trek. We’d had to dig deep, some deeper than others, to get through. But in the end, having discovered the kindness of strangers and bonded with friends, old and new, over the beauty, trials and rodents of the Overland Track, it turned out to be the right trek.

The writer traveller at her own expense.