ABC journalist Adam Harvey’s training for the GI Cancer Institute’s Larapinta trek was going well until he was shot on assignment in the Philippines.
It was a pretty good excuse for failing to keep up with his training schedule. Adam is pictured training with his son as his 7kg+ backpack prior to his injury!
His injury was a nasty shock, but he’s recovering well and keen to see the Larapinta Trail and the stunning MacDonnell ranges.
Adam is walking with a group of medical researchers and their supporters, who are raising funds for research to help people diagnosed with Gastro Intestinal (GI) cancer, which includes oesophageal, stomach, liver, gall bladder, bile duct, pancreas and bowel cancers.
Adam knows how fleeting life can be.
His father Peter Harvey was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012 and just three months later, he was dead.
Adam explains, “With only a 7% five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer a focused and determined effort is needed to improve the outcomes for those diagnosed … and the same goes for many other rare cancers.”
They’re grim statistics but the GI Cancer Institute’s new cutting edge research is making progress through developing better and more targeted treatments.
With the public’s help, we can conduct more clinical trials and provide more hope to the 24,600 Australians diagnosed with gastro-intestinal cancers each year.
If the trials are done in Australia, local patients will be able to access treatment options much faster than if the treatments are tested overseas.
Dr. Lorraine Chantrill, a medical oncologist with a focus on pancreatic cancer research and GI Cancer Institute Board Member, is also trekking the Larapinta Trail.
“As part of my medical practice, every day, I see families affected by pancreatic cancer” she says “I have been participating in clinical trials to find a better way to treat my patients and I am walking this trek to honour a promise I have made to those I have treated to do whatever I can to improve the life expectancy.”
To support Adam & Lorraine and find out more please click here
Larapinta Trek – Guided walking along Australia’s most iconic desert trek whilst helping raise awareness and funds for the GI Cancer Institute
The Classic Larapinta Trek is one of the seven Great Walks of Australia and is now noted as one of the top 10 walks in the world on many trekking writers’ walking lists. Walking the high ridge lines of the West MacDonnell Ranges trekkers will gain a rare perspective of vast flood plains, the razorback rocky outcrops and sheer scale of this ancient land.
For the GI Cancer Gutsy Larapinta Trek, Huma Charity Challenge has arranged an itinerary that appeals to the active walker prepared to cover fifteen kilometers each day – in total walking over 80km of the full 223km long Larapinta Trail.
The diversity of trail stages is impressive: at times the trail descends from the ridge line into narrow canyons where sheltered pockets of delicate fern and twisted gum trees grow from the dry rivers of sand. On other stages trekkers will walk to the impressive Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm and sunrise climb of Mt Sonder (1,380m) a perfect vantage point from where we can trace the entire West MacDonnell Range.
Adam Harvey in Training –