The 2011 Great Walk Foundation team are currently walking from Bathurst to Blaxland for charity.

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The 4th annual Bathurst to Blaxland walk is on again.  The 170km trek will commence on Tuesday 17th May from the Knickerbocker Hotel Bathurst and finish on Saturday 21st May at the Lapstone Hotel Blaxland.

Along the way we will be visiting the Parkside Motor Inn (Lithgow), Imperial Hotel (Mt Victoria) and the Grandview Hotel Wentworth Falls.

The Great Foundation walk each year and raise money for charity.The Foundation’s mission is to focus on the greater community needs within the Penrith/Blue Mountains/Hawkesbury region.  A number of local organisations were recipients of monies raised.

The foundation has raised in excess of $230,000 and many charities and organisations have benefited.

The money raised from last years walk help fund the following:

• Nepean Hospital (Infant Incubator) $32,000
• Springwood Hospital (Aged Care Equipment) $15,000
• Penrith Commuity Kitchen - $10,000
• Sailability - $10,000
• Lifestart - $10,000
• Panthers on the Prowl - $5,000
• Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy - $2,200
• Doonside Care Burnside - $2,000

The official walkers this year will be

Rob Wearn, Mark Mulock, Johnathan Green, David Crossman, Tony Bowden, Cameron McIness, Trent Baker, Greg Nelson - and the new kid Graeme O'Kell.

We will once again be ably assisted by our trust road crew, Brett Lockett and Wynne Rowe.

According to that schmaltzy old song you ‘walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, and you’ll never walk alone..’!  And literally you never walk alone when you travel with the enthusiastic group of charity footsloggers that made it into Lithgow yesterday afternoon.

Along the way the group had encountered their share of wind and rain .

A little leg sore and weary but delighted with their progress and support, the group of Penrith district identities was walking 165 kilometres from Bathurst to Blaxland  raising money for a number of important charities.

They made the same walk in reverse last year and raised almost $80,000.

Led by former Rugby League international Mark Geyer and Penrith solicitor Mark Mulock they set out from Bathurst on Tuesday, reached Tarana on Tuesday evening and the Donnybrook Hotel at South Bowenfels yesterday afternoon after negotiating some of the steepest hills anywhere in the region.

This morning they were scheduled to make a significant donation to the Life education Van at Cooerwull School before the next stage of their marathon to Mt Victoria via Browns Gap.

The Great Walk will end at Blaxland on Saturday.
Story and photograph courtesy of the Lithgow Mercury