LifeTrail

18/01/2025

What do we do when we can’t hike due to the intense Perth Summer?

I get out the Bibbulmun Track map, jump on two great local hiking sites www.thelifeofpy.com.au and www.thelongwaysbetter.blogspot.com.

And plan my 2025 personal and teen hikes. It’s both very pleasurable and you miss it so much at the same time.

Today I tried to walk Google Street View the Bibbulmun Track, but it soon didn’t work. It’s been done so you should be able to.

11/12/2024

11/12/2024

Proudly a Business Foundations Fremantle self-employment success story

In 2016, during my two-month 1000 km Bibbulmun Track hike, I had an idea to start a business, which I had never done before. However, I had no idea where to begin; it was a minor dream, and I doubted myself.

Little did I know that in 2024, I would be working for myself, and my first draft Didier Walks would expand to become LifeTrail to match the services and clients I now work with.

I recently contacted Business Foundations in Fremantle, who brought the energy, belief, and knowledge into my dream back in 2016. I wanted to update my Business Foundations Success Stories page to match LifeTrail now.

Carmelina Fiorentino, the business mentor at Business Foundations, believed in me and my idea. She is still there; I can't thank her enough! I am still very proud to be recognised as one of their success stories.

In 2016, Didier Monot hiked the Bibbulman Track for the first time, a trail extending 1000km from Kalamunda to Albany. This led to a powerful physical and mental life transformation, which Didier seeks to share with others through LifeTrail.

30/11/2024

LifeTrail Blog: Hikefulness - Everything is connected

Hikefulness is not a word; it is a flow and experience for the senses and soul. - Didier

By the end of a 5-day hike, teens told me that they had connected with animals, trees and other people like never before in their lives. One girl, in particular, told me for the first time in as long as she can remember her social anxiety was gone; she no longer feared speaking to her peers, and the enormous expectation of making friends, she spoke to total strangers.

Suddenly, something came over me to trust; I was connected to everything around me. I switched off my phone, put it in my pocket and just walked with no expectations of following the burnout trail. I suddenly knew I was exactly where I was meant to be. I could see and feel it, and I had no doubt.

Every hiker knows the feeling of waking up to the kookaburra at sunrise. Stepping outside your tent, the brisk cold air showers you. As the sun rises through the leaves, which glow like gold, the smell of rain, how perfect it feels on your skin.

18/11/2024

Hiking is more than just a walk in the bush.

My participant is a mature man with Early-Set Dementia who began his first 2-km hike with me 2.5 years ago. He has always explained to me how peaceful it feels out there; he feels calm enough to notice small, beautiful things like orchards and great characters like the emu.

He initiates conversations with other hikers; there's a wonderful, genuine community on the trail. He remembers in detail the five-minute interactions we had 12 months ago.
In that time, he hiked over 1000 km and completed day hikes over 20 km many times.

Hiking can be total peace, but it also brings out authentic actions and conversation; you will find me using this in reports for the rest of the team.

Your dream job is finding something you are crazy passionate about and good at and simply sharing it with others.

15/11/2024

The 2024 Perth hiking season is just about over. The conditions become too warm, and there are high fire dangers.

If you have an adventurous spirit and want to experience the extraordinary benefits of centred one-on-one hiking with a licensed operator and over 15 years of mentoring experience, the 2025 hiking season begins again in April or when conditions allow.

One-on-one mentored hiking means
- Centred mentoring
- Hiking how you want it
- We aim for your goals
- When you want, subject to availability
- Weekly or one-off hikes
- Real personal connections with other hikers, wildlife and flora.

The NDIS code CORE - Community, Social and Recreational Activities - 04_210_0125_6_1 is used.

15/11/2024

Centred one-on-one specialised life-transition and employment mentoring allow you the freedom and flexibility to do things like apply for DSP for financial security, discover some art inspiration, set clear goals, and build on your community confidence before your 2025 Multimedia TAFE journey together.

14/11/2024

Physical, mental and emotional journeys to hiking your own hike.

There is a saying in the hiking community that is so true: ” Hike your own hike.” This basically means hiking in the way you want and need. It can change, and you may need to adapt, especially during a long-distance hike. You hike with an intention, and you follow it, not someone else’s plan. ...

06/11/2024

5 Day Three Peaks Teen Hike
13th April 2025
All-teen hike - Duke Of Edinburgh International Award - NDIS

LifeTrail is a licenced hiking operator with 15 years of youth mentoring and 3000 km of hiking experience.

DukeofEd WA

21/10/2024

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Didier Monot
LifeTrail - Hiking and Mentoring
www.liftrail.com.au

04/02/2024

Duke Of Edinburgh International Award Level: Gold Combined Practice and Qualifying Adventurous Journey Report Date: 29th September 2023 Name: Forest, Plains, Coast Teen Hike – 7 days/6 nights Location: Bibbulmun track – Northcliffe to Walpole, Western Australia

04/02/2024

Santi’s 7-Day Gold Bibbulmun Hike

"My hiking on the Bibbulmun track for seven days has been a truly life-changing experience." - Santi

Duke Of Edinburgh International Award Level: Gold Combined Practice and Qualifying Adventurous Journey Report Date: 29th September 2023 Name: Forest, Plains, Coast Teen Hike – 7 days/6 nights Location: Bibbulmun track – Northcliffe to Walpole, Western Australia

04/02/2024

Santi’s 7-Day Gold Bibbulmun Hike

"My hiking on the Bibbulmun track for seven days has been a truly life-changing experience." - Santi

Since 2017, originally Didier Walks, now LifeTrail, has been guiding and mentoring 14 to 17-year-olds completing 2 to 7-day hike Adventurous Journeys for their Duke Of Edinburgh International Award. We love it, especially watching the transformation in these teens, who almost all have never hiked before, some with no sport or physical exercise. You can imagine the shock to their system, walking 17 km per day with a 17 kg backpack.

Hiking is mostly mental; it's what gets you up on your feet and keeps you in the right direction. Your connection with others and yourself. It's what keeps you focused when you discover several blisters. Next time you will pick them up earlier.

Duke Of Ed Participants are required to follow a hike to complete a personal report of their experience, some stats, and some self-reflection, which I enjoy the most and encourage.

Some of these hike reflections are simply beautiful, always inspiring and sometimes bring a tear to my eye. They walk on the trail one person and walk out feeling different, able to achieve things that before the hike thought were impossible or just scary.

Including these reflections on the LifeTrail website is both a celebration and an inspiration for other teens to see what is possible.

Santi has joined us on three multiday hikes; he goes to Perth Mod School, which we love and often work with. There is a lot to organise for a group from the same school. Perth Mod mums are incredible. The school has a gifted program, and I know that their students, now my hiking buddies, wouldn't mind me saying that we can sometimes hear them discussing physics during a long 21-kilometre day of hiking.

Santi is one fine young man; he is open-minded, kind, a fine character and a quiet and effective leader. I can see him hiking the 1000 km Bibbulmun Track solo one day. I already know if he reaches and chooses his current career goal he will make one fine doctor.

Duke Of Edinburgh International Award Level: Gold Combined Practice and Qualifying Adventurous Journey Report Date: 29th September 2023 Name: Forest, Plains, Coast Teen Hike – 7 days/6 nights Location: Bibbulmun track – Northcliffe to Walpole, Western Australia

03/02/2024

Hey, Didier here. Unblocking blogging 😁 and my blog Taking Steps Towards Resilience with my mate Deano on the cover.

I'd be the first to say Blogging is not a strength; it is something you need to do on a regular basis.

I do love keeping things as real and present as possible, I am a storyteller, evidenced by the odd few who have told me to shut up, haha. Each to their own.

I'm going to give it a shot by jotting some words down on the benefits of hiking, hiking preparation, my story, mental health, and things like that. I also want to invite a few people to share their thoughts and feelings.

If I need to complete something that feels stuck or I'm just plain scared to do, it needs the real me to come out. I find it often is not the task but the way I'm processing it that is stuck, so all I need to do is clear my path.

So, I choose something I love, something that causes me to flow and be present often, and that can be music. The path through what seems impassable seems to flow with less anxiety. Today, I'm listening to Alanis Morissette.

I have been guiding teens doing their Duke Of Ed since 2017; on completion of a multiday hike, they are required to write a personal report of their experience; some have been sensational. They brought a tear to my eye, reminding me why I did it. I'm going to include some of them, with the teen's blessing, ofcause.

Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to complex or challenging life experiences, primarily through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external

28/01/2024

Two Peaks Teen Hike (2 days/1 night)

Teens achieve their NDIS goals, have fun, make friends, overcome barriers, and achieve something extraordinary through a 2-day backpacking hike with Didier and LifeTrail. You will gain independence, genuine connections to nature, others, and yourself and colossal self-confidence.

LifeTrail is a licenced WA Dept of Parks And Wildlife hiking operator with over 15 years of assessment and mentoring experience in the disability, mental health, youth and recreation sectors. We have run 2 to 7 day teen hikes since 2017 and servicing NDIS participants on private hikes and life-transforming mentoring. We are a registered and celebrated Duke Of Edinburgh International Award Provider.

Visit the Naturbility page on the LifeTrail website www.lifetrail.com.au, Contact Didier at 0410 756 065, or complete the expression of interest form.

Chat with you soon.