"The Challenge"
In 2006 Brian became one of the early disciples of climbing the eight highest mountains in each State and mainland Territory of Australia. Graeme soon after joined the adventure and together we bagged the “State 8”, completing the last climb in 2011. However, mountains are addictive and somehow the job felt half done. During our climb of the “Top Ten” in 2011, we climbed the second highest mountain in Australia, “Mt. Townsend”. The seed was planted! Could we climb all the second highest mountains? Which we subsequently dubbed, “The State 16”.
Most people have heard of “Mt. Everest”, the highest mountain on the planet, but very few know “K2” is the second highest. As it turned out, the second highest peaks were a huge challenge and significantly more difficult to climb than the “State 8”. Due to logistics and the huge efforts in obtaining access permits, the second eight took another 8 years, culminating in climbing Mt. Bruce on May 11, 2021. Not bad for a 76-year-old and a 65-year-old. We believe we are the first climbers to achieve the "State 16". We hope this site provides inspiration to our families and others to take on climbing and other life challenges, whilst providing pictures and information on climbing the “State 16” along with insights into what makes Graeme and Brian tick.
Photography. Most of the photographs relate to each mountain we climbed; however, our primary goal was to climb the mountain and inevitably we often failed to take the "Kodak moment". Where we are short on relevant pictures, we have substituted whatever took our fancy. Enjoy.
