By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT
OVER the last decade, former Traralgon resident Gary Gillett has trekked the famed and vast mountain ranges of Asia every year for a great cause.
As the founder of Trek Ready Himalayas, Mr Gillett has organised and led multi-day expeditions along different circuits and trails in Nepal eight times since 2016.
In total, the treks have raised upwards of $300,000 for research of Parkinson’s Disease, through Shake It Up Australia.
Living on the Sunshine Coast in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Mr Gillett said he identified Shake It Up Australia as the appropriate charity to choose due to its unique funding model.
All costs are met by founder Clyde Campbell AM, with every dollar raised going straight to where it needs to go and nothing taken off the top for administration and marketing.
“For the last 10 years, we’ve been taking people to Nepal, except for a couple of years during COVID, and we basically encourage people to go,” Mr Gillett told the Express.
“We place them well and truly outside of their comfort zones and we challenge them.
“We invite them to help with fundraising and to generate questions in their communities and their networks about Parkinson’s, because it does make a difference when people start talking about things rather than hiding it.”
The treks bring in people across Australia from the ages of 16 to 73, including locally, as Traralgon’s Karen Little took on the Annapurna circuit with Trek Ready Himalayas last April.
Across a number of different treks on offer, 34 new and previous trekkers raised a personal record $68,900 in the most recent outing.
Mr Gillett lead a group through the Langtang Valley, including a few nurses from Sunshine Coast University Hospital, namely Gary’s wife Ailsa, completing her first trek.
“She came to Nepal with me a couple of years ago, just to see what it was like, and then last year when we got back … she said (she) wanted to come along,” Mr Gillett said.
“So, that’s part of the reason why we chose the Langtang Valley trek this year, because it’s only a shorter seven days and it was only just on 4000 metres, so it was a good introductory one.”
With the nurses on deck, alongside the trek leaders who were all equipped with remote area first aid training, if anything was to go wrong, in terms of altitude sickness or worse, immediate assistance and helicopter availability was there to support.
“We all have individual first aid kits, there’s always somebody leading the trek with those qualifications, and we’ve got ready access to choppers when we need them,” Mr Gillett said.
While still living in Traralgon, Mr Gillett led treks on the Kokoda Trail, and even then, had his eyes set on high.
“Kokoda (was a) hot climate, very challenging, and I wanted to have a go at the colder climates and Mt Everest was the obvious one,” he said.
“It’s probably as hard as Kokoda, except it’s got high altitude involved in it.”
During COVID, Trek Ready Himalayas still raised money for Parkinson’s by completing 42 laps of Mt Coolum, outside of the Sunshine Coast, acting as a virtual climb of Mt Everest.
The treks have generated mountains of support and further vital finance every year they’ve undertaken treks.
“It’s a nice feeling to know that we’re doing something good, that’s probably the best thing about it,” Mr Gillett said.
“We’re helping people who I think were somewhat neglected and we’re helping their families (and) the carers of the people with Parkinson’s.
“Some of them (are) as young as 20, so it’s good to be able to do something good, and hopefully one day soon they’ll ring me up and say I don’t have to do it anymore, (and that the) problem is solved.”
Keeping fit and healthy as he gets older, Mr Gillett plans to keep trekking for as long as he can.
You can donate to support Shake It Up Australia’s quest for a Parkinson’s cure at: https://shakeitup.org.au/donate/
