My passion for hiking started through Scouting at just 10 years-of-age. As soon as the seed of completing my first walk was planted there was really no stopping me from going on more and more adventures. Although most of my hikes are in South Gippsland, I have a special place in my heart for the Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park where I discovered truly how beautiful it can be to spend some time in natural places.

For me, setting off on a trip creates a vacuum of time. Bushwalking trips are a space away from our busy lives, away from the constant structure and timetables of a typical day. You can suddenly find yourself just caring about putting one foot in front of the other and pushing through to the next hill. The simple act of completing a hike over a weekend can create memories that for me will last a lifetime and are always far more memorable than the memories I make when I get home.

Website originsIn 2020 while researching a Grampians hike I found myself going from website to website looking for information, never really feeling satisfied with my experience on any of them. Naive me decided that creating my own

website with an easy to use web design, helpful advice and clearly laid out hikes would be easy, but I quickly came to realise why so many sites just felt a little flat.

Within three weeks of starting out I thought I had the final design of the website, but a few months ago when I went back to look at it, I saw how basic it truly was. The website was clunky, poorly laid out and ultimately empty of the useful information I aimed to produce. The site back then is unrecognisable compared to what it looks like today, but the goal of making something that is truly useful to other hikers remained the same throughout my journey.

As a one person team I was a little overoptimistic about how much I could do in such a small space of time, but even with these limitations I launched the website in January 2021. Almost every day since then I have found myself thinking about how I could improve the features on the website to help others grow their skills. This may be new articles, creating a better user experience or adding all the hikes I knew. I worked hard to constantly push myself to get it to a standard where the average hiker would chose to use it.

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Writing an article on a regular basis forced me out of my comfort zones to learn new things and discover parts to hiking I had never experienced or even knew about. I never claimed to be some sort of know-all hiker who held all the wisdom of the hiking world, but rather someone who was passionate about learning, just like the reader.

I sought regular outside advice and assistance from people who had years of experience in the areas I wrote about because as much as I have learnt there are some things that require time to understand. These experiences of learning from others have grown me as a hiker beyond words and gave me the passion to share these experiences and the knowledge with other hikers.

Recent developments – AHF+It's only been in the last few months that I have started to be really happy with how the website looked and functioned along with the amount of content I had. However, I'm sure that in a year’s time I will be yelling at myself thinking there are so many things I could improve to make it better. Helping others grow their skills and find new places to walk is what drives me to create and help people every day but that hasn't come without its sacrifices.

I've always been someone who is focused and driven when it comes to projects I undertake, and without this I would have never been able to create something of this size and detail without giving in half way through.

The cost of keeping the site running recently came to my attention. It was a passion for me but definitely an expensive one which I didn't want to plaster with ads to completely go against a major reason why I decided to start this project. I became conflicted about this because I was always wanting it to be free

for everyone to use as a community resource but the amount of money the site cost every month was simply unsustainable for me to keep running on my own.

That led me to create AHF+, my way of trying to make it pay for itself without sacrificing the user experience and the valuable content I had created for other hikers. I kept everything that people came to the site for free but then created extra content specifically for people who joined AHF+ and wanted a little more than what the site had to offer.

These features weren't meant to be revolutionary but rather smaller things that made it worth the $10 a year price tag. As part of this I made a hiking quiz, 29 page beginner’s guide, customisable packing lists, packing placement diagrams, posters and more.

Something I always had at the core of the site was to welcome people’s contributions and I did this through a few ways. Firstly I welcomed people to write articles for the site on any subject around hiking that they were interested in. I also created a way for people to add the hikes they knew to the website. I can’t do every hike in the country and I know so many hikers are passionate about sharing their knowledge of their local area too so I created an “add a hike” area on the site. This made it easy for people to add their hikes to the list and is something I hope gains even more traction.

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When I look back at all I've done to create A Hikers Friend over the last two years I find it simply hard to believe. The quality of writing I first created is almost unrecognisable compared to what I write today, and without the constant push of publishing almost every week I would have never improved on it so much.

Anyone who has worked on a major project over several years in which they have put hundreds if not thousands of hours would agree that it is a learning experience which grows you as a person. I am undoubtedly a far more experienced and educated person than when I started and I am so happy I started this adventure for that very reason.

I'm always looking forward to creating more features and updates to help fellow hikers because after all that is the purpose of the site. Even after adding over 100 hikes myself, I want to more than triple that with the help of the readers who know the hikes in their area.

GoalsMy goal is to make the website a place that people can rely on for trustworthy and easily accessible information on as many walks in Australia as possible, a big ambitious goal I can’t reach without help from others. No matter how many hours I put in there is no way for me add them all, so I encourage you to help me create a community resource which anyone can use with ease.

Ultimately I've loved every moment of creating this website because it has allowed me to be better connected with the thing I love most, hiking. The people I've met along the way have been amazing and truly inspiring. They've taught me so many things that I never would have discovered on my own and that is something I am eternally grateful for.

I can’t wait to keep pushing the boundaries of A Hikers Friend - a place where hikers can trust and explore which is something I hope only continues to develop and flourish going into the future.

Near First Wannon hiker's camp, Grampians

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