The CrossingInto Victoria
Good Afternoon, Victoria
At 3.33pm I walked out of South Australia and into Victoria. Jack's roadside donation and 2,000 Facebook likes came with me, while Melbourne suddenly felt much closer.
We returned to the previous evening’s stop, about 16 kilometres short of Bordertown, and walked into town.
Bordertown was, in fairness, bigger than Keith. It had no monorail and no motor vehicles on sticks, but it did have a Viterra regional command centre, enough signs to start pointing at the next state, and one more chance for South Australia to make me smile before we left it behind. The Victorian town of Nhill was also occupying many of my thoughts, mainly because I had no idea whether it was pronounced nil, Neil, na-hill, uhn-hill, or if the n was simply silent…
By mid-morning the day had narrowed to a single focus: get to the border. I posted a challenge before the next 15 km session. The Facebook page was sitting at 1,995 likes, and I reckoned we could get it through 2,000 by the time I sat down for lunch and then crossed into Victoria.
That happened with 7 or 8 kilometres of South Australia still to cover. It was only a number on a page, but it mattered. Facebook likes were one of the visible ways you could feel people gathering around the idea, and hitting 2,000 on border day was neat timing.
Then Jack stopped. He was heading from Melbourne to Murray Bridge for work, saw me, pulled over to check I was okay, and made a donation. It was one more generous roadside moment before the state line, and it fitted the pattern that kept appearing: someone sees the hi-vis, asks the obvious question, hears enough of the story, and decides to become part of it.
The signs for travellers heading the other way started appearing before the border itself. That is how close we were: South Australia was already advertising itself to people who had just left Victoria. Lunch became our final meal in South Australia. Photos were taken, the support crew did their bit, and then the march continued.
I had technically been over the border according to the tracker while we were eating lunch, but the official crossing needed feet, not dots. With the half-hour time change already showing on the watch, I crossed at 3:33pm. I noticed the time, got the photo, and that was that: Western Australia, South Australia, and now Victoria.
It was a magical moment. Not the first border any more, but still a momentous milestone. Melbourne was no longer an abstract future city on the route. It was the next capital city, a week of rough planning, and a parkrun weekend starting to come into focus.
I posted the rough Victorian plan while the state was new under my feet: Kaniva, Nhill, Horsham and Ballarat by the end of the week if things held together. From Ballarat we would drive to Albert Melbourne parkrun and return after the weekend to continue walking.
There was HAA admin woven through it too. I was already asking how many HAA shirts we might see at Albert Melbourne parkrun, and reminding people about the virtual run/walk/crawl packs through Oz Virtual Racing. Even on a border day, the walking was only one part of what the whole thing had become.
Victoria made a decent first impression. The sign promised I would love every piece of it, which seemed confident. My first locals were a paddock full of cattle, friendly enough but not especially talkative.
The day ended short of Kaniva after another 50.2 kilometres, with the total at 3,173.6 kilometres. We had not reached Kaniva on foot yet, but that was tomorrow’s problem. For that night, Victoria was real, South Australia was behind us, and the line across the country had changed shape again.
Videos From The Day
And The Support Crew Came Too
A short border-crossing clip from Day 71, with Ben and Ols bringing the campervan into Victoria too.
Open on YouTubeImages From The Day
