Melbourne to Geelong Leg 2 Week 1 The Happy Walk

I’ll be totally honest with you and admit it was a tough first week of walking and resting.



Some of the highlights include one of my school friends, Lisa, arranging accommodation with her grandma in McCrae for 3 nights. Viv is a wonderful, enthusiastic and supportive lady and I enjoyed my stay with her immensely. A local radio station, 3RPPFM, invited me into the studio for a live interview. It was a bit scary to start with but Judy and Bob were great and asked some good questions about depression awareness, suicide prevention and Lifeline. I met a couple of fellow walkers on my last day on Mornington Peninsula. They were very encouraging with words of empowerment and strength, especially Michael at Rye who envisioned great success, many lessons learnt, many lives touched and reaching a high level of enlightenment. I accept that vision. At Barwon Heads I stayed with a fellow couchsurfer (about couchsurfing), Monique, and until we met I had no idea how much she went out of her way to help, I was very moved by her generosity.



I ended up getting a lift to Geelong from Barwon Heads because my heels were a mess and every step hurt so much I was almost fainting from the pain. The way my body handles pain is unusual. I have a very high pain threshold and don’t feel things like the start of a blister until it breaks. Many surface irritants like burns, scratches, chafe, bites and blisters I don’t feel, similar to bruises, I often wonder how I get them because I can’t remember hurting myself. But once the skin is broken it hurts and is very hard to block. The heat and inflammation for the first 2 days of healing was impressive and had me hobbling round like an 100 year old if I stayed still too long. Day 3 I wore my sandals with the intention of walking about 10kms roadside then walk another 10kms along the beach and in the water. After only 5kms I had 4 new sandal blisters and when I reached the beach it was crowded and too soft for walking long distances. Walking in the water was out of the question with all the boats and jetskis pushed up on the wet sand like an inner city 90 degree parking. It was difficult to understand how people were having so much fun being crowded together with constant noise and air pollution and screaming demanding kids throwing sand at each other and husbands and boyfriends comparing the size of their toys and the power of their engines.



$105 dollars were donated last week bringing the fundraising tally for Lifeline up to $450!!!!!! If you want to help out with a donation to Lifeline please visit the fundraising page at Everyday Hero and show your support. Every cent counts because Lifeline do such a fantastic job of helping people in crisis and saving lives. Click here to go to the Everyday Hero page :)



My week of rest and recovery is over. Tomorrow morning I get back on the road and head out towards Ballarat and Bendigo. My heels are mostly repaired and my energy levels are back up again. It was frustrating being off my feet for so long but I busied myself with some correspondence, writing another page for the website (nearly finished) and crocheting a curtain for my kombi back home.



I have started a vlog, video blog, on youtube and will be posting stuff up like videos of the walk, thoughts, updates and interesting things I see. You can see the vlogs at youtube.



Don’t forget that I will be doing talks as I walk so if you know anyone who is interested in having me visit as a guest speaker please let them know about The Happy Walk’s website where they can find my contact details.



I am always open for help with accommodation. If I need to pay for camping fees or hotel rooms it will be way out of my budget so safe, dry places to stay help a lot. You can help out if you have a spare bed or couch, somewhere safe to camp in my tent or donate a campsite in a holiday park or hotel room where ever I stop overnight. It all helps, every little bit helps. Due to paying some astronomical unpowered camping fees and needing a hotel room I have already used 3 weeks of my budget in the first 10 days so there will be a fair bit of free camping coming up in the next 11 days. I don’t mind free camping but I get smelly and there is rarely a convenient flushing toilet or running water so when someone stops for a chat I need to remember to stand downwind.



Onto a nicer subject, I hope you enjoy the photos. I have added some from Mornington Peninsula and Geelong. They’re just pics from the mobile phone, it is still the easiest way to share with you what I see as I walk.



I’m not sure if I will be stopping in Ballarat because I don’t have any bites from radio, newspaper or regional TV or talks and I have a week to catch up on. The next blog may not be until Bendigo but I may post some vlogs between now and then.

Take care of yourselves and each other

Terra