Following the footsteps of Hamilton Hume and William Hovell has proved rewarding and not too challenging for Karen Lynch, Jeannie Whittaker and Sally McPhee.
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The group of women from Cairns set out on their journey in Yass on March 8 and arrived at the Hovell Tree in Albury yesterday afternoon.
They followed the Hume and Hovell Track, constructed in 1988 "as closely as possible to the explorers' best determined route", according to the NSW government website dedicated to it.
Jeannie Whittaker had become familiar with parts of the 426 kilometre route during visits to see her sister in Tumut.
In other news:
"I decided last year that I would do it end-to-end, bought a map and managed to convince these two to go with me," she said of her friends.
"I thought I could either spend my birthday throwing a big party and forgetting everything, or turn 70 while doing this."
The group are part of a bushwalking club back home and their experience aided them.
"We had a few scrapes, but on the whole we did pretty well," Ms McPhee said.
"We had help from many locals and those who did food drops for us.
"For me, a huge highlight was seeing brumbies in the Kosciuszko National Park."
Traversing mostly Crown land and state forests, there are more than 100 footbridges and 17 campsites along the entire route.
At the most the women walked about 30 kilometres daily, including yesterday.
"We worked out the average age between us is 65, so we figured it shows you don't have to be that young to do a big walk like this," Ms McPhee said.
The group celebrated their achievement with hot showers and glasses of wine, ahead of catching the bus to Canberra for their flight home this morning.
Asked what would be next on their list, Ms Whittaker joked; "We'll walk back".
