Is there a better way to start 2025 than with a tramp or a walk? Since you’re reading a magazine devoted entirely to tramping and walking, you probably think the answer is no. But I can think of one: a walk that leads to hundreds of others.

That would be the Walk1200km challenge – where the goal is to walk 1200km in 12 months and, in the process, make walking a daily habit. 

The challenge was created four years ago to celebrate Wilderness’s thirtieth anniversary in the best way we knew how: by going for a walk. Since then it has grown to encompass more than 6500 participants and has been noted for promoting walking and the health benefits that derive from this most simple of activities.

How effective is it? Take me, for example: over the past three years I’ve walked more, and more often, than I have in the past 10 years combined. I’ve rediscovered my love of all walking – not just the kind that gets you to a hut or a lofty summit, but also the kind that allows you to explore your neighbourhood, a foreign city or reach the bus stop. I am proud to have been on more tramps, explored my city and visited more places than I have for many years. I am feeling fitter and healthier. 

It sounds like I’ve turned the clock back, but I haven’t. I’m accruing the benefits of being more active. I’m putting a down payment on my future Gold Card years when I’ll really want my body and mind in great condition; when I’ll have all the time to bag huts, be a great Poppa, meet lots of trail mates and climb those lofty summits.

So join me and thousands of others in making 2025 the year you walk more – 1200km more.