Hedgewigs at work:Nathan Daams, Dan Briggs, Kirsty Liddicoat and Guy Brasell.
Operations planner Kirsty Liddicoat is wise beyond her years about the benefits of daily exercise. Leading an active life is so much a part of Kirsty’s routine that she recently backpacked around Argentina with partner Guy Brasell, a production engineer who also works at West Angelas.
The couple arrived in Patagonia for a three-week trek through national parks and icy glaciers, which ended in Buenos Aires before a return flight to the dusty red desert of the Pilbara.
“We wanted to take in as much of the spectacular scenery on foot as possible, travelling about 30 to 40 kilometres a day, depending on where we wanted to go,” Kirsty said.
“Planning an active holiday made sense because we’d both done lots of hiking and we wanted to experience what we couldn’t see in Australia. Walking across glaciers was the highlight of our trip.”
Kirsty heads up the team of Hedgewigs (the name of Harry Potter’s owl) which topped the WA premier league halfway through the ‘step around Australia and New Zealand’ challenge. The team players are under-30, fond of fitness and highly motivated.
Mindful that her job is sedentary, Kirsty is a regular at the gym and runs and rides to keep fit. For 15 years she played state and national basketball and she is quick to admit that she owes much to her parents for their encouragement to be active and get involved in sport.
“I swam and did athletics as a child and it’s true that being active is something which stays with you. If I don’t exercise, I just don’t feel the same. Exercise is a part of life,” Kirsty said.
She said wanting to stay fit is a ‘mental thing’ and although like everyone she has her off days, she works through them because she knows the pay-off is feeling less stressed, healthier and happier.
The Hedgewigs mostly train independently for at least an hour a day, but sometimes catch up in the gym after work where they enjoy a friendly banter and challenge each other to do more.
Halfway through the challenge, the team ranked 13th in the national premier ladder, had completed a staggering 2,828,637 steps and reached Cradle Mountain in Tasmania. The Hedgewigs averaged 76,450 steps per day.
Getting a team together for Be Active was a relatively easy challenge for Kirsty as her teammates work the same roster. Kirsty’s partner Guy stepped up to the challenge because he wanted to boost his fitness level with plans to return to rugby union, having played for the University of NSW in his student years.
Super fit mine surveyor Nathan Daams has been involved in competitive Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (submission wrestling) for the last two years and also works out to relieve stress and increase his wellbeing. He is a regular at the gym, runs 10 kilometres on his breaks and rides 30 kilometres at least once a week.
The fourth Hedgewig is Dan Briggs, a grade controller and a state baseball player with an appetite for rock-climbing. Dan is another advocate of exercise as a stress-reliever and he also enjoys a round of golf on his less energetic days.
Hedgewigs teammates Kirsty Liddicoat and Guy Brasell stand on glaciers in Argentina.
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