Trailwalker or Oxfam Trailwalker and the related Trailtrekker are fundraising endurance events conducted across the world by

Oxfam Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. History Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...

, in which teams of four competitors must complete a course of in a set time limit - typically between 24 and 48 hours. The routes may be point-to-point or follow a circular route returning to the start.

History

The event was established in 1981 by Brigadier Mervyn Lee in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

as a training exercise by the

Queen's Gurkha Signals The Queen's Gurkha Signals (QG SIGNALS) is a regular unit of Royal Corps of Signals, one of the combat support arms of British Army. Together with the Queen's Gurkha Engineers, the Queen's Own Gurkha Logistic Regiment, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, a ...

, part of the Brigade of Gurkhas of the British Army, which was at the time based in the British colony. In 1986, teams of civilians were allowed to take part and Oxfam Hong Kong was invited to co-organise the event. In 1997, with the handover of Hong Kong to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, the Gurkha regiments were relocated to the United Kingdom. The Trailwalker event followed the Gurkhas' relocation and was organised over the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the Eastbourne Downland Estate, East Sussex, in the eas ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, with

in the UK acting as partner since 2002, alongside the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Oxfam Hong Kong continued to organise the original event without the Gurkhas and the event has grown with 17 events now taking place across 10 countries worldwide. In 2017, Ian Crawford of Petersfield, Hampshire, continuing his support of the Gurkha Welfare Trust and aged 74 years old, completed a record 19th UK Trailwalker in a time of 29hrs 34mins.

Events

Common rules

There are some common rules across all the Trailwalker and Trailtrekker events. * Each team must have four members, who are required to cross all checkpoints and finish line together, although teams may continue with only three members if one has to retire. * The Trailwalker event course, referred to as 'the trail,' is 100 kilometres long. * Participants should also organise a support team, plan and start their training schedule at least three months before the event. * All teams must raise a minimum sponsorship amount. Failure to raise the stated amount could mean teams do not take part in the scheduled event. Teams failing to meet the required amount approx $1600 are given an opportunity in the next years event with no refunds on entry fees and fund already raised. Teams raising over the threshold will take priority in registering for Oxfam Trailwalker next year.

Macau TrailWalker

In mid-2010, Upward Bound Unlimited (UBU), a Macau-based company which organizes sports tourism events in the Pearl River Delta region, and Macau's main English-language daily newspaper, the

Macau Daily Times The ''Macau Daily Times'' () is one of the two daily English-language newspapers published in Macau, launched on June 1, 2007. Overview The paper started life among one English and several Chinese and Portuguese language newspapers. It consis ...

, announced that a cross-country hiking event called "Macau TrailWalker" would be held later in the year with the support of the local Macau authorities. The event was held on 9 October 2010 on the outer island of

Coloane Coloane (Cantonese: Lou Wan) is a former island in Macau that is united with the island of Taipa by an area of reclaimed land known as Cotai. It is located at the southern part of Macau. Administratively, the boundaries of the traditional civil pa ...

and consisted of a 30 km category and a 12 km category. Prior to the event,

Hong Kong issued a press release stating among other things that it was not associated with the event or any of its organizers (nor had it been contacted by them), that it did not approve nor endorse the event, that no sponsorship money from the event would be used in any Oxfam aid work, and that it "reserved the right to take appropriate legal action to protect the Trailwalker name".

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, publisher=Oxfam Hong Kong, title=Oxfam Trailwalker History, url=http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/opencms.war/opencms/_info_/about/history.html?__locale=en, url-status=dead, archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721081754/http://www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.hk/opencms.war/opencms/_info_/about/history.html?__locale=en, archivedate=2011-07-21 {{cite web, publisher=Oxfam, title=Trailwalkers around the world, url=http://www.oxfam.org/en/getinvolved/trailwalker

History

Events

Common rules

Macau TrailWalker

References

External links