Wed14Aug2024
The plan is to be up before 6, pack, get some breaky soon after 6am, & buy a frozen meal for tomorrow night’s dinner, & be gone by ~7am.
I want to make about 24-28km this day, then the same the next day should get me to a toilet block and shelter for the night… before repeating that to make it after another 2 days
I’m a bit slow packing up, but get a lovely coffee (Australian high altitude beans - Crater Mountain Coffee- from Atherton), a pie & a frozen dinner for tonight from Andy (Andria), & Craig.
Thanks you two for your lovely service, the good food, the clean facilities, the cheery attitude.
Then I’m on my way soon after 7:30am.
Think I’ll start with some quiet listening & looking…
I did this, but that led on to thinking… as cars, trucks, motor-homes passed me… one Motor-home in particular helped me see more. Here are my reflections on the Turtle.
Then the ol’ mates from last night passed, and Jim & Anne slowed down to take a pic of me, so I said I’ll take one of them while they were at it. Jim laughed & said “Put your phone down.”. Mine only caught Jim, Anne is driving.
Thanks for your company & time. Happy traveling to the lava tubes!
~ 10:30am I put my feet up for about 20 min. (I'll try two breaks up to half-hour each today, after 8 km or near 3hr).
Another van (silver this time) went past, stopped, backed up, and checked that I was ok, and didn’t need water. I assured them I was, apologized for stopping their trip, but thanked them for their care. They were glad they had checked too. Continue on. Thanks for adding to the pool of humans here.
Listening to ancient bronze-age poems/songs/ to their national god, that some were positing as an international GOD .. very interesting. Very human. Very “Eastern” we would say today. [Psalm 27]
At 12noon I see an uplifting sign of some progress.
Have a guess what… at 12:40 truck with a rigamarole on behind it, coming towards me, slows down and goes (mostly) off the road, and stops. Robert (Jones-y) starts moving to get down out of the cab. So I drop my trolley chain and walk up to the truck. He pulls out an ice-cold 1.25litre Kirk's lemonade (sugarfree). Here he is:
Jones-y said he saw me earlier and determined that on his way back he gives me a cold drink. He’d been on the lookout for me until now. How good is that. Reminds me of something about “a cup of cold water”. I gave him this blogsite, and we went on. Then we “got going” again…me towards Mapoon, him to Townsville.
Thank’s for your support Robert, I have already drunk long from it. Thanks to the designer and raiser of Robert too. Creative family-&-friendship love makes this place power-on in ways that are human!
At 16 km progress I sat in my newly acquired folding chair, with my feet up, & took all the time it took to dig up, and bring to light the first blessing for fellow journeyers.
It’s time to pack,
and then get back
upon the road
(a little slowed).
I walk on, listening to, and singing with, some ancient Near Eastern proverbs, translated from probably many languages to other ones, and in the last 20 yrs freshly into modern English. A different outlook!
Speaking of outlooks, here’s an out back look (looking behind) at around 5 pm:
A car every 20 min (maybe), so much easier to walk on than the coastal road I’d say. Thanks Glenn Walker (from Charters Towers) for your advice on this.
A good time catching up with a mate from Orange after work on the phone for ~ half an hour
It seems I should try to do ~25 km per day to make it to have a Saturday night (& Sunday off from walking) at Greenvale. See how far we get, at ~ 5:30pm just before sunset.
Well, soon after 5:30pm I check how far I've travelled. 24 km. So I walk untill Google maps says 25 km back to Blue Water Springs Road House, and look for a flat spot off the road a bit. I hear a vehicle coming along behind me down the road a bit and go a bit quicker, to not be obvious. And work out a place with no ant-nests under it. I look down (& squat, I think) so as to be less intrusive to any vehicles going past, & only just get my chair untied from the top of the trolley when I hear a vehicle slowing down and doing a U-turn. It seems to be coming back to just a bit short of where I am. Then I hear “Walker!” we’ve got a cold beer ( XXXX GOLD!) for you, and out of the big ute towing a horse float comes Wes & Trav - the two blokes who gave me a cold drink 2 days back, they had expected to see me and Wes was acting spotter as they drove along. He spotted me alright. He reckoned the high viz shirt helped. So we sat and talked for about half an hour, (or an hour?) & had some beers,
heard some stories, and planned a meal together Saturday night at the Greenvale Three Rivers Pub, and maybe a night just before Mt. Garnet! How good is that! AND, they reckon I’ve probably done the most hilly but today. Yee Har!!!
What a great end to a beautiful day of walking through this land. I see them off about 7:15pm.
I think I'll have some dinner, pitch a tent, have a wash & hit the sack! Thank you to all those who have shared this world in the manner of a human so thoughtfully with me today. Thanks to who had and raised these people too. Thanks to creative family & friendship love! Life is almost too good.
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