Well we've walked the Southern Isle

Well we've walked the Southern Isle
(of Australia's two big ones).
Done it with some pain, a smile,
relaxed/ intense, in "wigwams".

I don't mean we've walked THE lot,
just NoBo (that is North-Bound)
from South Cape, to ol' North Point,
(not quite nothin', so I've found).

At times we went: in-house (with bed),
under blue tarps, or blue skies,
cabins, or where campers fed,
'times with showers,.. & with flies.

Sometimes talking, sometimes quiet!
Learning from Creator's work;
story, colour blazing riot,
moving on, at rest, not shirk-

-king from the trail now travelled,
and still to come (with help).
Some of it now unravelled,
some wrapped up with more than self.

Folk have walked along some way
and those trails are "done 'n' dust-
ted", shared life, & learned to pray
as though God was one of us...

Tedius, at times it was,
wonderous - quite often too,
ponderous sometimes because
of blisters/ foot-sore in shoe,

and because of so much good
to ponder as we walked on
since the tale that Mark told would
come each day, before too long...

.. what a tale of strength & lure;
made me glad to follow such..
such a man as Yeshua,
who walked then (as we have) much. 

Day 12 - (the math &) the aftermath...

I ended up talking with Mark & Heather till 2:30am and beaky was at 7am with Mark cooking us bacon & eggs, Heather making us a cut lunch, and Hannah-Charis driving us to the plane at 8:15am..

Wow, what a day..I splurged, and we had the last night on the trail in a "budget cabin" at the Stanley Caravan Park. Hot showers, our own kitchen, places to charge our phones as we slept, beds, sheets, towels.

We had (the night before) checked out some of our options for the next day, &  the Caravan Park was happy to mind one or both of our packs till the arvo.

We weren't sure how we'd do the last day... It depended a bit on our feet.

Grego knew he wanted to get to the top of The Nut (one of the iconic landmarks of Tazzy, an outstanding volcanic plug in Stanley)

I knew I wanted to attempt to get to the Northern point of North Point (NP) - the tip of the peninsula above the town of Stanley.

I woke at 4am and heard Greg rustling with stuff in the kitchen. He thought he might try to climb The Nut then, and after that maybe come with me to NP about 6-ish...

I was thinking of leaving now (that I was awake) for NP. So we decided to have breaky, pack up, leave most of our gear with the Caravan Park Reception, try to do NP together, then if there was time in the arvo before Hannah picked us up Greg could "do" his nut (so to speak).

It took a while to pack 'n' clean. I think we left our packs in the designated spot at 6:30 or 7, then headed off on the approx 9km trip (18km return) to NP.

The first half of our trip was on public roads, then the last half was across a farmer's private farm.

Our feet were very sore. I had developed another blister (on my heel) the day before, Greg's gammy foot was very sore (He thinks he's got a break in it, and is hoping to get some X-rays tomorrow).

The Eastern side of the peninsula had the cliffs (of insanity(?)) that way, the Western side might work, but would be best to be low tide to ensure we could get around it. The tides were the opposite of what we wanted. High tide was ~8:30am. I had decided to approach the farmer & simply explain what I was doing, and that I had come from South Cape, & ask if we could walk on the tracks on his farm to North Point, if he said "Yes", it might save us 5 km, if he said "No", then to the extent we had to, we'd have to go around the coast; but who knows, even then, he might even let me/us cut straight accross to the coast from there in his property, rather than retreating all our steps, back a km or so to where the public road came close to the coast.

I led us on a wrong turn so it took 15min longer, to get there, but when we got to the front gate of the farm, a sign said "No entry".

I decided to push on and try the "ask anyway" strategy.

When we finally found the beef-farmer (John Bruce and his wife Angela) after spooking their newly weaned calves a bit, he said this was the worst day in the year for it, the calves just weaned the day or two before were in that lane-way, but I could walk through in about 2 weeks; or go back along the road - to the coast and go that way, but, he warned us, it was very hard that way, especially if it was high tide..

When Greg arrived & I introduced him as my partner for this leg of the journey, John said "Oh if you go back through this particular  track on the West, those calves haven't been weaned yet, so you could go down the fence beside them through to the coast. I thanked him for this shortcut though his land, and we took off.


We had no idea how lovely it would be.























But also,
if it wasn't through Bramble bush or scrubby stuff,














 it was over loose rounded irregular rocks as big as one or two fists...










or on sea-weed






beautiful soft seaweed, that depressed 5-15cm every step... making it quite hard to walk through after a while...

on already swollen, (blistered- well, mine) very sore feet. Greg said that if he had known it was going to be this hard, he wouldn't have come. I was glad I didn't know it was going to be THIS hard, because maybe I mightn't have come either...

At ~10:30am after a few mistaken identities, we arrived at North Point, took some photos, sent some texts, and headed back to try to make "The Nut". On walking up the bank I had 3 bars of phone coverage, so I rang Trevor from the Anna-baptist Community who had offered to help by picking us up, to make my daughter's trip that arvo easier. If we could get a lift to the Nut that would make it quicker. I decided to shout Greg up the chairlift to "The Nut", then I'd ring Trevor, he'd probably arrive by the time Grego had finished. All happened as hoped for, when I rang John & Angela to thank them & let them know we'd made it, they congratulated us, AND let us walk back on the inside of their perimeter fence when we weren't disturbing any cattle in a paddock. This was heaps easier. Then a Farm Manager (Ray) picked us up from the bitumen road (saving us about 6km?) and took us to "The Nut", the chairlift was $16 return (instead of someone's hear-say that it might be $40 one way).

Trevor's son Andrew, and his friend Ruben, picked us up (then our bags), and took us to Trevor's place where we had some lovely home baked bread n jam, & a cuppa with his family.

Trevor then dropped us off in Burnie with a couple of hours to rest while we waited for Hannah-Charis.

We finally got to Mark & Heather's place in "Perth" (Tasmania) an hour late, but enjoyed a sea-food dinner with them, and their son Ruben, & daughter Bonnie. Grego was a real hit, and Heather sorted a Magnesium salts foot soak for him.

Mark & I took off where we'd left off about 25 yrs ago, sharing a house in Cooma, learning to try to follow Jesus in ordinary Australia. Mark passed on a little something verbally, that for some reason I really appreciated, having shared life with a very special woman for almost 30 yrs now: Then he found it on his phone & texted it to me



They asked me to please pass on the greetings & love to anyone they know on the North Island (Mainland Australia).

We're just now as I write, on the bus less than an hour from Orange...and putting our feet up. Yipee.

Thanks to all those who helped, encouraged, waved, shared life, along the Way.

Paul (the) Walker.

Day 12 (Wed20Jan)

North Point, Tasmania.
We-eee-Who-oooo! Made it here!

From South Cape (or, on the way).
With a lot of help! Would say...

Thank you! [2God, and his kids
(or lambs), that's his "billy-lids"]

Paul the Walker (& the Greg
who is Harken-ing) now beg

you to celebrate with us-
"Champaigne", or some other fuss!

















Above: @North Point, Grego in the back-ground, me grimacing at trying to make this technology work to take a "selfie", with several "fly-friends" getting in on the picture too (bombing the shot).

Day 11(Tues 20Jan)

What a day!

During our 1hr. time of solitude as we walked, this morning, I felt like a little kid &  and made up a song to the creator, wrote it on this piece of bark as I went...

and recorded it as I walked...



It's been amazing seeing about 5 different strands that have been pulled together, to the point where it looks like we might make it to North Point by Wednesday sometime. Grego stumbled on a Hutterite/Anna-baptist community last night (thinking they were a Caravan Park), who took us in & have transported much weight from our packs for us today to Stanley, and sent us off this morning with a prayer after they gave us breakfast (and a cut lunch).

On top of that however was the freak co-incident of low tide coming on while we walked the last 10 or 15 km, which meant we could walk to Stanley along the beach, with our feet in the cool waves. Do a river crossing, holding our bags above our heads at Black River, ... etc,

and cut of probably 2-5km.











(for those of you who pray: Pls keep praying for God's work in Grego and his ol' mate who is walking with him - me.).















As we walk down the beach towards Stanley. You can see the "Nut" (extinct volcanic plug) at Stanley on the right (above the sea horizon, about an eighth of the picture in from the right edge). That's where we got to on this day.
When we got there we splurged & booked in to a Budget Cabin, as a celebration, to have a shower. a kitchen, somewhere to ask our friends into, & somewhere to charge our phones...

Day 10(Mon18Jan)

Ivan & Terri Beard offered some space to Stanley this morning... This meant we could cover more in a day, with out our heavy packs. It was beautiful, some roadside views: lovely sights on both the left, & right, coming closer to the turn off to Boat-Harbour beach.

..

(We had the chance to stop here, or move on and try to make it to North Point. Since people like Ivan & Terri offered to help, we decided to press on. Maybe another time for Boat Harbour beach.)

When we could go no further, Glen French let us pitch our tent on his front lawn at Montumana (about 7km from our nearest source of supplies. Then said "Hang it- I'll take you to an ideal camping spot, by the river and near a shop. Grego was glad because he wanted some milk for a cup of tea, and we had just about run out. I was thinking hmm, then I have to walk back to fully have covered the route. I checked if the camping site was on our route or not, it was at a place called Detention 10K further on & we would be going through it. Then it dawned on me that Greg could go with Glenn and our two bags and the tent and all our goods and I could walk the 10K. That's what we're doing!

Update: They found the ideal camping spot by the river had recently had a "No Camping" sign put up. Greggo decided to go to the Caravan Park he had seen down the road, and found it was a Christian Community (The Annabaptists), and they have given us a place to stay, as well as sharing a meal with us tonight, at the Russell's place. After tea some of them allowed me to practice my drawing... what do you think?

An exciting thing for me is that the father of this household (Trevor) has offered to take our bags the 26km to Stanley tomorrow. Maybe we can walk it without our bags. Maybe not. We'll see. Trevor has also helped us work out how to get right to North Point (above Stanley)

Break/Rest Day 2 (Sun 17Jan)

The day began with Grego making cuppas around 8, breaky, & off, at about 8:35am. Off we went along the warinto the lounges

and thraheadtown, to fin the dayn yhe df Jesus followers. They are all such different sub-cultures; St. Bridget's Catholic church - we would have had to be there Sat night @ 6pm.

We tried to follow the directions we got from the lady walker we met yesterday to the Christian City Church (CCC) up the Nothern end of Arthur Street(?). We arrived about 9:15am, to find that it starts at 10 a.m.

We met Neville, Fiona, Geoff, Ashley, Darren, Elly (&her boy, the Bass player, Josh), wow, and others, Nick etc. We heard Tom tell his story around the theme of Servanthood, had a cuppa after, and a bunch of fellows prayed for Greggo's foot to strengthen. 
As we walked back to have some lunch Geoff caught us in his car and asked us home for lunch, with the fam (Fiona, Simeon, Chris & his g-friend Christy). Chris & Christy were amazing questioners & conversationalists (both work for telstra- retailing), and what an amazingly generous family. We heard something of their stories for a few hours. Sitting on & @ amazing wooden furniture (with no nails or glue):


After the grown offspring had left for the arvo, we got a snap of the couple

& Geoff dropped us near home on his way to a meeting.

I payed up for our second day... & 
spent some time talking with a local whose business is ailing because of the rise of motorhomes & free-camping.
Grego cooked herb & garlic snags for us tonight, with 3 veg & pasta. Yummy.
We decided to miss our Mark today, have to do Mark 11 on Monday.
Early to bed, to rise at 5 tomorrow.
But about 8pm some fellow campers whom we met briefly yesterday came into the lounge area & we talked for more than half an hour... 
Ivan & Terri Beard offered us (or our gear) a lift slong the way, or to Stanley tomorrow... Could this work to get our gear dropped ahead, and then we can walk more..

Day 9 (Sat16Jan)

We woke at 5:15am, I think, put our phones on to top up the charge,  had our cereal & a cuppa, and packed the tent. We were on the road at 6:25am. We took our hour of solitude, with Greg ~50m ahead today. I think I recorded a ditty thing again. I wonder what Greg did. This is an essential part of the pilgrimage. I popped into a servo to use their loo, & ended up also buying 2 egg & bacon "rolls" & a piece of slice each for mornimg tea. Greg waited for me then at the sign that told the distance to the Wynyard information centre. and we walked from there together.

From here on we noticed an interesting phenomenon:
The flies were thick! Though I found it difficult, my secret weapon is the way they taught me an amazing lesson about living under a set of assumed rights instead of under authority. Greg hasn't yet had that privilege, so he was nearly going insane after 20-30min.  It was then that I recalled the fly net I was given for Christmas, by Mum. Grego tried that (& his coat)

 untill it got too hot under the extra clothing with "a tropical sub-climate", and they had probably slightly reduced in numbers.

(repeated below
so you get the drift-
poem-ish thingo
to help our minds lift..

it grew on our walk
& right up till now..
I'll pop in the cork
to slow it right down):

"The flies are thick!"
he said, "and fast!"
"Like, they're quick,
and - Oh be blast!...

the flies are thick!
don't mean they're dumb-
"thick as a brick",
though there are some...

don't mean they're broad,
or extra wide.
The flies are thick!
-can't be denied,

for when you clap
your hands in air
there's a fly chap
(or chap-ess) there.

and just now, greg's
applause brought 10
black dots upon
his paws but when

he wiped them off
and tried agin
the flies stayed thick
and did not thin.

For when one died
ten more came in
from every side
you could not win!

And so I say
with Grego here
"The flies are thick"
-so all ain't clear!

(I'd say there's more
from where that came,
for when we saw
the C-park dame

she said "Too bad,
for you just now,
the flies are thick
because somehow

the South bushfires
have made this smoke
which drove the flies
which nearly choke

us all here now,
and stops the views,
been such a row-
& on the news!

- but stranger yet
was when we went
off to erect
our newish tent

of thin gauze mesh
(up to the sky),
and then Greg's ques-
-tion; "Where's the fly?"

I grabbed it hence,
the thought came quick:
compared to tents,
"the flies are thick!"

We followed the abandoned rail-line for a while, I got a little better at ballancing walking on one rail. Greg's foot started hurting a bit much, maybe from the big bits of blue-metal between the sleepers so we abandoned that after 30min.

We stopped for morning tea at maybe 9:30 or 10:00 at Doctor's Rocks beach where we checked out our route - we decided to go through Wynyard, not around it. With Greg's sore foot we might even stay there tonight, and then probably also Sun also. I also took my shoes off and bathed the swelling and blisters in the refreshing cold Bass strait water.- lovely! - then we apportioned our Mark stories for the day.

We checked our way with a lady doing her morning walk about 10:30 on Sat morning & she walked with us for a km explaining the town, the whereabouts of the 2 Caravan parks, & "churches that weren't too wierd". We had passed one C-park on the S.E. edge, so we would continue to the central one, near Woolies etc...

We booked in for one night, (& possibly two), put up the tent, had a 1hr break with feet up, went shopping for two days, came back and rested, told 2 lots of stories (hoping to finish the third tomorrow morning), had an argument -of sorts, about people feeling wrongly judged etc. Had a yummy meal, and into bed about 7:30-8pm. That's when I tried this blog again...