poorly-el-walker

Though poorly walking, anyway it's on.

Not so much "going down", as "coming up":

from Southern tip of good ol' Wilson's Prom.

into the town of Melbourne (with it's Cup).

On Monday, Twenty-fifth of September,

'bout Twenty-seventeen years from his walk;

the plan's to start, if I can remember

(that's rightly), from the South tip, t'wards Cape York

(I mean the North of that) Peninsula

that's up the top of this the Northern Isle

(of two main Islands of Australia).

I mean to do it all in "walker" style.

The first leg of the journey's from the Southern edge,

with nature's fierce winds and waves that roar.

And though at times we may sleep under hedge -

will journeying help  civilize us more?

This and other questions we'll be seeking

some answers to, as we walk on this trail.

Technology's advances (like the Sea King

those helicopters, & good drugs) avail

to help us up when we have fallen down.

So we are glad of good things that have come,

but much more than the "things", are smile and frown

& learning to live with, who we've come from.

So though we're going slowly, bit by bit,

we're trying to learn from who's been this way,

especially if their aim is peace, to wit

we're one blood, even if not DNA.

Pauly L. Walker

A Southern Victorian Pilgrimage ... 1st leg - on the mainland... of proposed Walkers trail..

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BACK-GROUND & RATIONALE

Tasmania (South Cape to North Point) Completed 2016

The multilayered rationale for the pilgrimage from South to North (NorthBound=NOBO) is partially described  on the banner on the right of this blogspot:

yvalker.blogspot.com.au

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FORE-GROUND

1st leg - on the mainland... of proposed Walkers trail..  230-250 km

Proposed for Mon 25 Sept 2017- Thursday 5th Oct 2017

I would love for us to be able to share a meal (break bread) with friends who honour Christ as the ultimate leader, on the Sunday or Monday before the start of the walk, the Saturday or Sunday in the middle of the walk, and the Thursday night (or Friday morning?) at the end of the walk.

We'd probably need to camp down near Wilson's Prom on Sun night 24Sept, to take off from the Southern-most tip of Mainland Australia, 1st thing Mon morning.

[I have an appointment Fri 6- Sun 8 October (in Rockhampton, Qld), so I'd like to finish Thursday night. Else I'd take our time and finish Saturday night]

I propose the same daily disciplines as were used in Tasmania last year:

• An hour of silence at the beginning of the day, spreading out & walking alone along the way.

• Starting with Mark chapter 1, each day to adopt a "chapter" of that ancient story of hope that brought sanity to the insane 1st Century Roman Empire, in order to deeply hear the oral stories that comprise it, as we also practice that ancient art of telling the story (that came to be called The Gospel) as well.

• Listen to the stories of each fellow traveler on the way, and each "fellow traveler" that we meet, even when they can't come with us. Attempt to transmit what we learn from these to others as we go.

• Share meals together with joy, as we share the way together; expecting the present, living, Christ to come out of the story Mark told, and the story told by our lives, and to build (in this day, as in the First Century) his community between us.

A friend (Tim Godfrey), is planning to accompany me for this entire leg. Some others of you have shown interest in joining in on part of this walk.

Please pray for us, even if you don't come.

( Click on the first part of my colourful name below for some reflections on an appalling life, and the last part of my colourful name below for some of the story of a Walker, so far )

( V R, but V R not finished products. 

V R being made, but not just 4 ourselves. 

Nor even only 4 each other. 

Work out Y V R. Then,) 

Remember Y V R!

P L your own banana. 

Then, you can help someone else P L theirs.

P L Y V R

PauLindsaYValkeR

+61419919241 

pilgrim pulse

As we walk along the road, days end,

we come at last to times when we can stop

and still continue talking with a friend

and even eat a bit, and drink a drop.

It’s at these times when friendship comes alive

at close of day, around a meal, at rest,

When people’s thoughts keep marching past “survive-”

-al”, savour good, and thinking too of best,

and learning too, to listen (not just talk)

and actively to try to feel with them,

and open up your life and not just baulk

at differences that take us past our “ken”.

Past our “Ken”, & “Barbie”, model pair

and to a deeper magic underneath

until we come at last to places where

then we decide to spend of love’s bequeath…

and putting up with others’ weird ways

and then their special other little quirks,

so that it hardly matters what (s)he says

I’m not just thinking “All of them are jerks”.

And yet to call those jerk-ish ways their names,

and handle any flack that is stirred up;

not escalating, playing little games

where all our sensitivities erupt.

But modelling the kind of bigness that

most parents have for kids (who have well grown),

and friends have for their friends who’re thin or fat,

yet open up their inner thoughts. Be known.

Sat 12/11/2016 ..

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...