Back To Reality After Melbourne

The Melbourne mini-break had been brilliant.

Then Monday arrived and the gear went back on.

We had driven back to Ballarat the night before, ready to restart the walking. The wake-up was slightly later than usual, but I was moving again by about 5:30am. My phone said Golden Point was sitting at five degrees. The sky did not exactly disagree.

Fifteen kilometres was all it took for wind, cold, rain, and a couple of little hills to erase the memory of warm hotel accommodation and city-centre dining. Back to reality, then. Onwards toward a little place called Gordon.

There was still a warm feeling from Ballarat, even if the weather had other ideas. Local media and friends had supported us before and during the walk into town. The weekend had given us parkrun, people, Melbourne and rest.

But time was tight, and the next job was simple enough: get as many kilometres done as possible, then make the relatively short drive to Bacchus Marsh for the night.

The route took me along Old Melbourne Road, cutting across Mahers and down Lesters, then out through Millbrook, Gordon, Ballan, and beyond. It really did feel like we were off the beaten track. The photos from that morning are wet and green: quiet roads, fields, horses, old buildings, bare winter trees, low cloud, and the sort of countryside that somehow felt familiar even on the other side of the world.

Looking back, it reminds me a little of where I grew up in Somerset. We lived right on the edge of an industrialised market town, with country lanes and farmers’ fields behind us. I do not know whether that feeling was fully formed in my head at the time, but something about this kind of landscape has always felt baked into me. Australia was delivering its own version, with massive bells on.

It was still challenging. Cold. Windy. Sometimes wet. My body held together after the long push into Ballarat and the Melbourne weekend. “No significant physical issues” could pass for joy.

Then came a small-world moment that still feels ridiculous.

Ols had parked the campervan while Ben and I were doing a 15 kilometre post-lunch session. The van happened to be near the end of Claudine’s driveway, so when she drove past, she stopped to check everything was okay.

Ols explained what we were doing. At the same time, Claudine was on a hands-free phone call with a friend in Western Australia. That friend was Jane from Poppet’s Pantry, who had already provided us with two bags of ridiculously delicious food.

Jane heard the explanation and told Claudine to go and find me.

So Claudine did.

There is an expression you hear a lot in Western Australia: “it’s a Perth thing.” Someone from Perth meets someone in London, or Sydney, or the middle of nowhere, and within three questions there is a friend, suburb, school, running club, workplace, or cafe in common. This was absolutely such a Perth thing, except it happened on a Victorian back road while I was walking from Perth to Brisbane.

By the end of the day, we had made good use of the restart. The finish came at a reasonably civilised time, around 6:50pm, after another 58.4 kilometres.

Then Bacchus Marsh gave us one more piece of kindness.

Janet and Mark at Bacchus Marsh Caravan Park gave us a powered site for free. Warmth, charging and somewhere to dry the gear before morning.

That unexpected support is one of the things I will never get bored of talking about.

The strangest part of the day was still the geography. We had just spent a weekend in Melbourne, but I was now spending two more days getting there on foot. That felt odd, but as the evening came in and the lights of Melbourne appeared from the hills, it was genuinely exciting.

The city was close again.

This time I still had to earn it.

Images From The Day

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