Uncover Nepal’s Everest Region on This Incredible World Expeditions Tour

One way to resuscitate your fitness? Take on a trek that’s literally breathtaking in Nepal’s magnificent Everest region.

Thankful for a stone ledge to rest on, I offload my pack in Tok Tok, a village surrounded by green fields in Nepal’s Solukhumbu district. A pigtailed cutie is perched above me, polishing off a lollipop, and our common language is making hearts with our hands that we peer through at each other.

My traveller’s glow lasts only until the next village, when a passing mule produces a raspberry that lasts… and lasts. Rude. Or – let’s go with this – is it cheering me on to reach Pangboche, which sits at nearly 4000 metres? Barely a third of the way into my eight-day trek in the Everest region, I might be grateful for the extra wind.

Six weeks out from this bucket-list World Expeditions adventure in Nepal, I hit the panic button. After a few years crunched at a computer, I was enjoying my circuit workouts again but couldn’t crank myself into a gear worthy of a high-altitude challenge. I got onto Sonia Wray of Sterling Fitness in Sydney. A straight-talking, hike-training dynamo, she delivered the kick I needed. “I would recommend three training months, from couch to trek,” she told me. Oops. “It’s best to start 12 months out but the absolute minimum prep time would be six weeks.” Yes!

When I meet my trekmates in Kathmandu – Australians, a Kiwi and two Canadians, ranging from late 20s to a fit early 60s – we’re excited about what lies ahead but I’m apprehensive, too. Though Wray set an intensive program of cardio, hikes and hill climbs, plus weights to strengthen my legs and upper body, preparing for thin mountain air is a challenge on another level. Having previously had altitude sickness (zero stars, cannot recommend), I’m preemptively taking medication to reduce the risk. How will I manage it? And what if I accidentally drink contaminated water? Can someone else worry about the details so I can just put one foot in front of the other?

Enter genial trek leader Bir Singh Gurung. Next year marks 50 years of World Expeditions leading trekkers around Nepal and Bir Singh has been on board for 25 of those. Our commander, motivator, logistics manager and chief first-aid officer, he also seems to know every plant and animal there is. As well as the 10 of us, he’ll lead 13 staff: a head cook, two kitchen hands, four other guides and six porters, who’ll each hoick two of our 15-kilogram duffel bags to the next campsite every day.

Leaving Kathmandu’s dusty chaos on a seriously bumpy road trip (trekmate Dan notes that “My Fitbit registered 21,350 steps”), we take a twin-engine plane to the tiny, sloping airstrip Sir Edmund Hillary built at Lukla (left). “We were flying between the mountains then suddenly the wheels were on a runway,” says my seatmate, Emma, my fingermarks slowly fading from her arm.

Sitting at 2800 metres, Lukla has that frontier-town feeling. It’s crowded with pack animals and fluttering prayer flags; dogs blink away afternoon-nap time as we head out of town. Our trek winds through the 124,400-hectare Sagarmatha National Park, a spectacular UNESCO World Heritage area of tumbling rivers engulfed by giant mountains, starring Mount Everest and seven other peaks over 7000 metres.

Beyond helicopters dropping heavy goods and tourists at designated points, motorised transport isn’t an option up here – all cargo is dispersed by animal or human. While we enthusiastic visitors only carry daypacks with water, rain gear and essentials, our porters do the heavy lifting and receive, we’re assured, a good wage and other benefits. It’s an average five hours a day of walking and the guides set a slow pace to avoid the altitude risk of overexertion. “You don’t have to catch up with the first person,” says Bir Singh, keeping me company at the tail of the group. “It’s like a drum; you make your own beat.” Mine is a very slow ballad. The trail is all steep slopes and stairs, switchbacks, dust and rocks.

But the payoff is beyond magnificent. At every turn, views expand exponentially and I’m open-mouthed in wonder. Okay, yes, and gasping for breath. Fabled peaks – Ama Dablam, Lhotse, Kongde Ri – tower over pine forests, junipers and cedars, with giant rhododendron bushes that couldn’t possibly fit another magenta flower. “How far down is that river?” I ask Bir Singh on the edge of a slope. “A thousand metres,” he replies. A kilometre! My head’s wobbling, physically and figuratively, from grappling with how tiny we are between that and the snowy caps above.

“We have a granny,” quips Bir Singh one night while the camp caretaker, known to all as Gaga Maili (“middle sister”; above right), chortles and fusses over her guests. Her farm-fresh cauliflower and greens help fill us up, along with pumpkin soup, chicken curry with rice and dal, salad and roast potatoes. All our water is safely boiled and every meal is nourishing and satisfying, including the leisurely lunches. There are surprises along the way, including delicious buffalo salami, yak-cheese pizza, spaghetti, hot apple fritters and even an iced and decorated cake.

In 2016, World Expeditions pioneered permanent campsites here, installing roomy tents, heated dining rooms and flushing toilets so we spend each night in comfort. The tents have height to stretch and change, and I snuggle into a warm sleeping bag on my comfy twin bed that’s raised off the ground – a blessing for the weary.

Throughout the adventure, the highlights reel is packed. Drinking coffee on a sunny terrace, admiring Mount Everest’s flyaway combover of cloud. Waiting for a mule jam to clear from a high suspension bridge. Hearing a gunshot that’s actually a distant avalanche. Walking through a cloud of flitting dragonflies. The doleful faces on huge, shaggy yaks in sharp contrast with their cheery cowbells. Bir Singh locating a guitar for a performance, with guide Santosh showing us how Nepali dancing is done – we’re transported. Even emptying the bag of rubbish we’ve each collected for the 10 Pieces litter-removal initiative is its own buzz.

By Bir Singh’s reckoning, mountain trekking is “60 per cent physical fitness, 40 per cent mental determination”. But that doesn’t allow for the once-in-a-lifetime things we’ve just experienced. I would also squeeze in 10 per cent credit to steaming porridge with milk, honey and butter every morning, plus fresh eggs and mugs of hot coffee. Not to mention the group dynamic (Emma calls it “that great school camp thing”), eating and laughing together in toasty dining rooms, looking through timber-framed windows at the actual, real-life Himalaya.

Back in Lukla, we celebrate at The Irish Pub, reportedly the second highest in the world and, to be sure, a little heavier on the rattan décor than one might expect. Over a glass of the bar’s finest red, a Lindeman’s Cawarra shiraz cabernet, the triumph hits; I’ve done it. I found my bravery again – no extra wind required.