RETURN-Peninsular Day 69, Wed23/07/25 (Driving Dubbo to Orange)

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In Dubbo, after breaky with the Tosh family, "Happy birthday! (- for yesterday)" to grand-daughter number 1, & helped rheem out a bathroom tap. (Missed all the photos).

At Wellington, called in for a Coffee at Macca's (as I usually do), and saw Andy’s Service Station over the road:

I walked past here, and then with Andy through Wellington on my way North on Fri 8th July 2022, so I rang the door bell to hear what had happened to Andy since our last talk (he was leaving Wello) and found the post from 3 yrs ago … no response today… a story to hear there, but that might have to be next time I drive past..

Drove back to Orange, called in to see my lady in her lunch break, then home to lunch with two of my daughters and one grandson, followed by a little “Grand-Dad Kip”, pick up my lady after work, coffee together then back to a daughter’s house for after work drinks where we stayed for dinner… 

Back in Orange… NSW.

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Home again, home again jigetty jog. What a trip!

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RETURN-Peninsilar Days68, Tue22/07/25 (Driving Grafton to Dubbo)

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Around 8am I am leaving Mike & Di’s… where I met with some of their visiting friends too, (Chris & Jeanie) 

Today before I drive, I am given help to deal with that reactive part of me… a certain grumpiness or cynicism in me regarding certain trends, and habits in parts of our Australian society, our people, & our collective choices. I still have  a reactive edge, that is unlikely to be helpful. Oh, help! Creative love! I need your help more. 

But this day, travelling, I listen to Lewis's sci-fi “That Hideous Strength”, and am filled with something hearty and sustaining. 

I see enough the way forward for me…. Now the thing is to learn to do it, to practice it, to claim it as mine by choosing it regularly (over against other options for my responses). Step 1, step 2, step 3, & now it is a journey begun. Unless I stop taking steps, I will get closer. And if I am given the time, if I continue, I will be linking in with those motivating purposes, and the way this world has been made, I will know them, and be known by them.

I arrive just in time….

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RETURN-Peninsilar Days66-67, Sun20/07/2025- Mon21/07/25 (Driving Brisbane to Grafton)

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Monday 21/July/25, Leaving Mum & Dad’s… where I met some of their neighbours, (Wilhelmina Sun night) & Monday morning, the Newtons (Noel & Trish)...

Did a quick line drawing pic of Noel… 

This "living" bit has some very scary aspects to it. But CREATIVE WORK for purposes in line with HESED (loyal love, friendship, keeping one's word  faithfully...) appears to me to be the golden thread worth following. 

I said goodbye, walked to the car and camper-trailer, where the gardener took a pic  of Mum, Dad, & me in front of the car and trailer. (thanks mate!)

and I was off… to visit my “Alongsider” in Grafton (Mike) & his wife Di, where I arrived around 2pm.

Some other friends (Chris & Jeanie) arrived around 5pm and we caught up before and after dinner.. 

They asked some simple good questions about the walk .. in listening to my answers (& looking at good people’s responses) …

I became aware of a certain grumpiness or cynicism in me regarding certain trends, and habits in parts of our Australian society, our people, & our collective choices. It had a reactive edge, that is unlikely to be helpful. Oh, help! Creative love! I need your help again. That might have to be an area to think through (with help) as I travel the next day to Dubbo.

With 2 games of banana-grams at the table after dinner, it’s early to (shower &) bed - by 8:30pm.

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RETURN-Peninsilar Days62-65, Wed 15/07/25 - Sat19/07/25

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Wed 16/07/25

Drop off my hitch-hikers at the Cairns Botanical gardens 

& pick up Dad at Cairns airport around 9:30am, fuel up and travel to Mt.Garnet, where we have lunch with Adrian, then fuel and dinner at the Lynd (Conjuboy, Oasis Roadhouse), then more fuel and munchies at Greenvale, and Hahn River Roadhouse, and Charters Towers (where there were no powered site vacancies, so we drove on till the highway was blocked with a semi-trailer accident, then we turned back to the last rest area with a toilet (~5km), & set up camper-trailer and slept.

Thurs 17/07/25

With my Dad, travel from where we camped at a rest area after Charters Towers and before Ballyando Crossing. With a flat tyre before Clermont and two new tyres in Clermont, arriving in Rocky at about 7:30pm.

Fri 18/07/25

With my Dad, travel from Rocky (after having a cuppa with Mr. Carpenter, who was my Sunday school teacher at 10 yrs old; & from the house of the Follent family) to Brisbane

Sat19/07/25

Arrived in Brisbane last night. Visited a mate who mentored me for a number of years when I was at Uni. (He's got prostate cancer which has metasticized to "un-treatable, incurable"   fast acting cancer.)

Another mate texted to chip me for not visiting him up in Atherton, but he told me he was too busy to talk, and needed to do 8 things to get out of his rental  quickly, and only had time to talk when he was on his walk doing another job.

So now I'm not quite sure what to understand from gis communication. It sounds ambiguous... He can't afford to have people like me butting in to his life. He needs people like me butting into his life.

Well, sometimes things like that happen to me too.

Lucky my friends don't hold me to my worst moments of  communication. 

I'll trust creative love/friendship to give me the grace to do the same with him, as my friends have done for me..

Thinking of him now... 

I'm hoping to be back in NSW by Mon/ Tues. And home by Tues/Wed.

Hope you are able to get that  appointment with a third party, or health professional... & to be true to your newly-being-created self, like the Author I met in my mate’s book. Thanks for loosing him on the world. He is a blessing. Speaking the truth, being fair-dinkum, in a spirit of mate-ship and thoughtfulness towards (at least some) others sharing the planet with him..

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Woke at Neil’s place, walked out and saw a mug which Neil rarely uses, because it disappeared for a while… 

But it reminded me of a true statement that I have discovered myself…

but, with Jonny too, we had some coffee together…  and…

..a picture popped out…

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Neil & I talked about social capital: bonded, bridging, linking; with changes being described in books like () & enigmatic actions which woo, which create curiosity, which go beyond the official structures and into the scary no-man’s lands where people on the fringes live/exist etc.  & new options discovered for neuro-divergent children around meal times and meeting times… very helpful.

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Lunch with nephew’s family in Ipswich or Redbank Plains at their new rental house.

Afternoon with my Dad’s brother (my Uncle), near Redcliffe, Brisbane, then dinner, talk and bed.

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RETURN-Peninsular Day61, Tue15/07/25

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Tue15/07/25 we (Ella, Mathieu, & I) 

@ The Archer River Roadhouse

At Coen… My passengers offer to pay fory lunch and coffee from Adrienne, at The Grub Truck:

James (& Kat) police said G’day… James had seen me on my way to Mapoon & had suggested I have a Cape burger, (or Mapoon Burger) at Mapoon.

And drew a pic of Adrienne

… By ~1pm

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At Hahn River Roadhouse we filled with fuel and found that the trailer’s connection had fallen out and been worn off… we went on to Laura & found a way with two connectors to do the job… we bought some dinner and the connectors and it worked! Matthieu was a great help… we are heading for the Mt. Molloy campsite tonight, now with lights for night driving ...

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RETURNING Peninsular Day60, Mon14/07/25

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Monday 14/07/25 we (I was with Karen, & Joe)

 got on at 6:15am & caught the ferry from T.I. to Seisia, 

had some breaky at the Seisia Kiosk, with a fresh coffee and drove to the Jardine River…  the ferry has just snapped the main cable, so is broken down… a number of folk in front go back to Bamagar to camp till it's fixed, so we move up to 5th in the line...of about 60 cars (& vans).

people set up camp, get fishing rods out, make new friends... 

As we wait, Tony & Liz meet me again… the adventure is not over…. 

We set up our tents. Liz says they've got food to share if we're stuck there. Tony suggested Dr Amen’s book “Change your brain.” on Audible. I want to check it out.

Aaron & Annie from Irelandoffer to help with an oar to “boat” on some foam, over to the Roadhouse to get some food. 

I draw Aaron in his spirax notebook.. but didn't get a photo of us, or him, or the photo (rats!).

Jarrod & Jacqui said G’day, coz we were all waiting to meet at the Jardine Ferry..  and Jacqui let me practice my drawing: 

And Violet got a drawing in too.

We all talked for an hour or so, 

(L to R) Cohen, Jarrod (back), Mark ( back), Eve, Meg (at the back), Violet, (immediately behind me), Jacqui, Emmett (front right) and they filled me with two cool beverages.. Thanks you folk.

Nelle (backwards of her name, Ellen) from Paaratte, on the Great Ocean Road, said G’day and we chatted for a while at the back of the ute…

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Then @ ~4:30pm the ferry started up again.. we were the 5th in line… we might get through today??

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Over by 5pm, found the trolley around 20km further on, & were “lucky" enough to snag dinner at Bramwell STN Tourist Park (they had sold out, but with the ferry breaking down they helped us out by making up lovely ham, cheese & tomato toasted sangas for us, & with a cold beverage, and a haveaheart… we made it to Weipa…&  in bed by midnight! With a lot of fun and adventure inbetween. Yee-har!

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Peninsular AND BEYOND - Day57, 58, 59 (Fri 11-Sun 13 -July-25)

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From … the Seisha wharf and [on the ferry to Thursday Island (T.I.)] then toe-ing it (walking) from the Southern tip of T.I. to the Northern tip of T.I.

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Up around 4:30am join Joe & Karen packing tents (and all our camp-site), breaky, and repacking our gear in the car and parking it somewhere safe to board the ferry to T.I. at the Seisia wharf.

On arriving there we realized that the accommodation was for two, not three, so that gave me a chance to be more independent again… and let me walk the 4 or 5 km from the Southern Point (this is looking South - from below the helicopter pad):

(the blue dot at the bottom, at low tide, is now  "pointing" North East)

(where Baz Ruddick with the ABC tee-ed up an interview with Emma, & then  Adam on “Drive” that arvo at about 3:30pm., just enough time to finish my walk (of T.I.), past the wharf, to the Northern Point of T.I. (facing Northward, on land, two shots from spits going out):

screen- dump of Google Map, at low tide, with phone facing S.S.W.:

Then I returned, sat in the park and did the interview.

(Saturday, 12/07/25)

Baz Ruddick sent me through a link to the interview that night .. (with the ABC proviso that people who didn’t receive the email personally don’t disseminate it further. So, I think that since I did receive it personally I can let you listen to it, but please don’t pass it on further yourself)

Here is a link to download/ play it from Google Drive: ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-wlKqO5PYImzMc78knsXnHT5MNrMjx_1/view?usp=drivesdk  ) 

The recording misses out the "I would walk 500miles" song that was, I think, on before it..  (On the way North from Melbourne sometimes I'd sing that... Wanted to sing that to my lady when she opened the door in Orange, NSW)

Baz said 

"I attached a copy you can download. ...

I left the Crowded House track on the end because it's a good one!

All the best mate."

Gives me a record of that interview. Thanks ABC. Thanks Adam from the afternoon “Drive” program, for asking great open questions. Thanks Baz for tee-ing it up with Emma, and getting a copy to me, & thanks for leaving the Crowded House song (Something so strong) on at the end too, I hadn't heard it after the interview, because Chris came on and said "Thanks...etc"  but it is a good one, and it fitted well, in my experience, too.

I just downloaded the lyrics: even more to it than I knew. But now I know it in another way…

Love can make you weep

Can make you run for cover

Roots that spread so deep

Bring life to frozen ground

Something so strong

Could carry us away

Something so strong

Could carry us today

Turning in my sleep

Love can leave you cold

A taste of jealousy

Is like a lust for gold

Something so strong

Could carry us away

Something so strong

Could carry us today

I've been

Feeling so much older

Frame me

And hang me on the wall

I've seen

You fall into the same trap

This thing

Is happening to us all, yeah

Something so strong

Could carry us away

Something so strong

Could carry us today

Something so strong

Something so strong

Something so strong

Something, something so strong

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Neil Finn / Mitchell Froom

Something So Strong lyrics © Wyoming Flesh Publishing

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Now I get to look through those other 29 reasons for doing the walk … and assess, see if more needs to be done, or something “further in and higher up” (the call that the children's books The Narnia Chronicles finish with… )

Thanks to all those who did, for sharing the adventure of a life-time.. and making connection.

Thanks mostly to the creative love, the mate-ship, the fairdinkum-ness that partnered with me, let me join in on the walk in order to keep learning to be a partner myself. The patience, the persistence, the wisdom, the capacity to see enough of the big-picture in order to take the next step(s) in the right direction, the friendship that extends itself, that was extended to me, in order to be a conduit of that to others in whatever small ways are possible. It has been overwhelmingly difficult (at times), exciting, but full of wonder, & ... beautiful. Worth every step!

Here's Kapila at The Jardine on Thursday Island, on Saturday morning. He came to take my breakfast order, but 

willingly took this shot of me (below, without a high viz shirt on). Thanks Kapila.

Time to retreat/ reflect on a “job done”; “life still to be lived”; for these two days (Saturday & Sunday) now, on T.I., then heading back to Weipa, Qld., and then driving back to Orange, NSW.

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If anything especially reportable happens in the next bit, I'll stick it up here. (The trouble is.. things like that don't seem to just stop happening). 

Otherwise, for now, it's over & out! 

(Now that I've toed it (from the South tip of both Tazzy & the Mainland) to the North tip, of not just the Mainland, but also of Thursday Island (even further North), I'm changing the name of the blog to yvalker (tip toe).

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Paul (de) Walker. 

(... The Slow... & the Curious)

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