Strategies for leaving and arriving home

On the road, I held onto a small bar of chocolate for 6 weeks, only taking a nibble when I thought it absolutely necessary that I would need such a sweet treat. Like for instance, if I should happen to be falling into a deep crevasse, or after I had been battling gale force winds, or as a palette cleanser after drinking fecal liquid from cow dung or eating kangaroo droppings, which of course Bear Grylls does on a regular basis but only came once for me, on the road between Campbelltown and Casula, but that’s another story, that was almost a month ago.

Back in the city I now face and another kind of survival and it would seem that I need to treat myself with a pick me up on a more regular basis.  Take this here photo for example, some might think relaxing with a long neck and smoking a cigarette a little bit out of character or at the very least perhaps shows a foolish and premature abandonment of the straight edge, simple life I was living on the road. Perhaps it is but my friend, who took this photo, assures me that I look friendlier and way cool as a smoker even if I’m faking it, in fact she suggests that smoking would really help with my kudos and now that I’ve arrived in Sydney I need to start thinking about that again.

“You’ve changed. You’ve changed mate” is turn of phrase I picked up along the way and that’s what some have said to me but have I really? I’m unsure as to how we are changed by our experiences and I think if I have changed from this, then my understanding will perhaps reveal itself to me in years to come.  This walk has now shifted into memory and nostalgia has set in. In the city when I think about it, I miss the space and anonymity that comes with being alone in a motel, the certainty in getting up and moving on each day and the urgency of needing to find shelter before sunset. I don’t have that here,  simple necessities seems hard to realise in the city.

My adventure uniform has been replaced for another.  I have been wearing the same blue jeans, t-shirt, jacket and boots since I arrived (see photo above). It’s not just that I have always liked a certain type of uniformity in my clothing but also that all my belongings are packed and stacked in boxes. What musty clothes I can find seem as if they belonged to me a long time ago and I’m not the type of person to wear such clothes anymore.  Between you, me and everyone else who might read this blog, I miss my shapeless, quick drying, highly flammable pants, friends in Melbourne said this would happen to me in Sydney and in stating this I realize that I’ve changed mate, I’ve changed.

I have travelled between theses two major cities in Australia a lot but obviously never like this. I have passed through places marked on maps that are now barely shadows of the towns they once were. Should I pass that way again, I wonder if they’ll still be there.

If there was an illusion of wanderlust about this walk, I don’t want to shatter it but it feels slightly important to say that this was not necessarily about that, nor was it entirely a solitary walk of a hopeless romantic lost in the wilderness. I often struggled with my role in this project. On the one hand I have been the romantic pilgrim who needed company and on the other hand I was a host, a facilitator, organizer, caterer, adventure and tour guide for others who joined me.

On the road I was asked a lot about why I was walking, on a personal level I can answer quite simply that I wanted to gain perspective. In walking I have created a distance and a memory between the life I built for myself in Melbourne and the one I am now building here in Sydney.  On another artistic level, I have written something like this….

Having made primarily participatory performances over the past six years, in which structures were created for willing participants to be guided through a web of experiences, this walk was an opportunity for me to consider values of exchange in performance in another way. By placing myself inside the structure and imposing the rules on me as opposed to willing participants, it allowed me to invert this impervious relationship.  Those who connected could predominately do what they liked; they could change the nature of the walk if they chose and each person who engaged with the walk, in someway did. Whatever they did had a lasting effect on me. It has been both a deeply personal and shared experience to have people join me on my walk, be it in person or via the web.

If after all this earnest waffling (forgive me, I was a huge Jane Austen fan in my youth) you are still reading this now, I was just writing to say thank you for joining me on this adventure. I didn’t think I’d make, even my most enthusiastic supporters had doubts but here I am,  I have arrived.

All my love

Sarah,

Dears,

I will be arriving at CarriageWorks in Sydney on Sunday July 23. I am walking from Bankstown and plan to roughly follow this route.If you’re around these parts, I would love for you to join me on my final walk, or you ,might just like to come down to CarriageWorks at 3pm for afternoon tea.

I have reached the outskirts of Sydney; I am almost there.With my arrival I can feel, almost see, my mind slowly filling with lists of things I have to do whilst it simultaneously  expels what I have been thinking about all this time…What have I been thinking about all this time? I am leaving the country behind, I am saying goodbye to all the country stereotypes, the long straight road, the endless sky, the thick dusty grass, plus the almost the daily sightings of kangaroos, the frequent smell of rotting road kill, the plague of mice and all the ducks in the pond. I’m not sure what goes on in my mind when I walk. I have enjoyed the richness and simplicity that comes with putting one foot in front of the other, constantly moving in and out of balance, keeping myself upright, like a small child does but hopefully with a little more know how and finesse.

In Bargo, the weather changed, it was still cold and but there was also humidity. In Appin, I knew the coast was near, not just because I could see it on my map but because the layout of the forest had changed and there was sand in the soil. I have thought a lot about Michael J Fox and how I loved him as a child and still love him now. I loved Ralph Macchio too but not anymore. I have thought about Jeff Bridges and how he is the only man, who immediately comes to mind, who looks good with a goatee.

I have though about how my hips are often sore, and how even though I stretch most days, perhaps they are tighter now than they ever were.

I have thought about some people who write about walking, Jane Austin, Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, Virginia Wolf, David Henry Thoreau, Werner Herzog: I have thought a lot about how often I have wished my constitution was more like Werner Herzog’s in this walk.

While I was taking a shit a hare came by at arms length without noticing me. ( Wener Herzog ” On walking in Ice”)

I have thought it strange how many male role models I’ve had on this walk…and in life, Like Ralph Macchio in the karate kid when I was 10.

I have thought about my pack, the things I have brought and how surprisingly satisfied I’ve been with everything. My pack now feels redundant. Nostalgia is a funny thing. I’ve been OK with wearing the same clothes but I have missed not having eye cream. I think next time, never mind the weight, I’ll bring eye cream.

In Bowral, I thought parents were shielding their children from me. I though that because I’d been walking for so long that I now smelt of freedom and possibility and nobody wants that for their impressionable teenager. Really though, if children were being shielded from me that day, it was probably due of  my failed theory on deodorant and not my ‘real life adventurer aura’. Two weeks before I started walking I decided to stop wearing deodorant. I thought that without the external pressure of deodorant that my body odor would naturally neutralize itself. Six weeks into the walk as I parted the parental sea in Bowral, I had to acknowledge that this was clearly not the case.

I didn’t find a puppy but I have no regrets. Or maybe I did find a puppy in Gerorgery but Dianne and I  had a few drinks that night and I thought it best for the dog that I let it go. As much as Dachshunds are my dream dogs, I couldn’t imagine one walking with me, it just didn’t seem right with those little legs.

The weather is constantly changing; I will miss seeing the shy shift around me  each day as I walk. It’s not that this doesn’t happen in the city, of course it does, it’s just that because I’ll be indoors a bit more, I might not notice it as much and I will forget the profundity that this obvious metaphor of rolling clouds can have in life.

The other day Michael Snape called this walk an exercise in equanimity. He said that he thought I looked different and that he thinks this walk has changed me, but I don’t know if it has, perhaps yes, perhaps no. Michael referred to this as a pilgrimage and at times I have called it that too but I’m not sure now.  He asked if I’d had any kind of revelation and I though yes; maybe, well definitely if you count the deodorant. I thought about how I wanted to invest more, both physically and mentally in my future and how I wish I could make furniture but who needs to hear that.

We agreed that this was not a spiritual walk.

I am just putting this out there now, now that I have arrived in the city and yet again, like at the beginning of this walk. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.

I am looking forward to walking through the suburbs and seeing some of you at the end at Carriage Works.

In the meantime this is what I’ve been up to out there.

I have been banging on about the people I have been meeting and with good reason; this walk has really been about meeting people, and how these people influence me along the way… as opposed to solitary wandering say. People have been very generous; they have shared their time knowledge and their homes with me.

Nicole and Graham

In Pheasants Nest, Nicole and Graham put me up for the night in their beautiful home, and weekend / weekday getaway Winbourne Estate. They made me pumpkin pie, soup and eggs, they pointed out that there was a huge gorge between me and my next destination, they said I couldn’t walk it and then drove me part way to my next destination in the morning. Graham is a Farmer and Nicole is a Psychologist, here is link to Nicole’s current workshop on resiliance. building and much more you can check out her website .

In Appin when I had nowhere to stay, Sue and Kevin came to the rescue, with an open fire, a bath and muffins.

 Kevin in Appin

In Wedderburn, Agatha Gothe – Snape again came to may rescue, this time she brought her father Michael Snape. Dressed in their best father daughter tweed jackets, they picked me up and drove me to meet their friend John who let us stay in his home to party the night away while he went to Chair a meeting for WAM ( Wedderburn Against Mining).

 John and Michael, changing the world with their words

And now here I am in Campbelltown and the Art Centre has put me up for the night just for kindness.

Most of time camping is fun, especially if you’re with friends. Take this picture of Stu, Cindy and Agatha, joking about the the log they just carried, should they burn it or sit on it?

Or this other photo of Raindeer taost antleers.This was when walking became just like a weekend away with friends.

I wish I had camped more (on my walk), but I have often felt haunted by the pervious experiences, like the time when the only thing holding my tent down was me.

When I mentioned Sarah’s project to my father, how she was going to walk solo from Melbourne to Sydney, in winter, alone, for two months, let’s just say a look of panic crossed his face (in truth it was over the telephone but from the questions that followed I knew the look was there) What? Alone? Nonsense? She won’t be safe. You better call the police.  You better talk her out of it.

The thing is my dad hasn’t even met Sarah so I can only imagine how Sarah’s dad, who not only knows Sarah, but loves her dearly and most likely holds her as his greatest achievement (lets just face it – she’s pretty great), felt when she broke the news.

My Dad offered to join her, but lucky for Sarah it is her Dad that actually did (no offense Dad but trekking and camping mano a mano with your friends parent who you’ve never met is just plain awkward..not to mention the horrible dorky tales from my past that might slip out should the conversation lull).

Now Sarah has already blogged about the time spent with her father on the road, so I won’t go in to details, but I would just like to say to Joe, well-done sir.  As one talker to another I salute your efforts, I too would never let minor things like loud trucks passing or losing my breath walking up hills prevent me from allowing the endless flow of thought from passing my lips.  Sometimes you just gotta talk.

I would also like to share this incredible video with all of you.  Never since Jack Nicholson uttered the words “Here’s Johnny” has wood chopping been quite so exciting.