A dedicated lifelong walker, Sandra worked in Melbourne, Australia, as an archivist and historian after doing a PhD on the history of national parks in her home state of Victoria. In her spare time she wrote a regular column about bushwalking (hiking) in Melbourne's leading daily newspaper, and many articles and books on walking and national parks in south-eastern Australia (1977-89). With her late husband Hal, Sandra moved to Scotland in 1989, and she still lives beside Loch Ness. In recent years she has written guidebooks for Lonely Planet (Italy, Ireland, France, Scotland, Australia, 1998-2007), Rucksack Readers (England, Ireland and Scotland) and Sunflower Books (Croatia and Poland-Slovakia, 2006). After a long career in education, information technology and academic publishing, Jacquetta became interested in long-distance walking and trekking. After completing the West Highland Way, her first long walk, in 1998 she progressed to Mount Kilimanjaro, which she has since summited four times by different routes. She is a member of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild and in 2016 won its Award for Excellence (jointly with Max Landsberg) for their jointly authored guidebook Trek to Everest.