The CrossingWangaratta Warmth
Wangaratta Warmth
Cold, wintry Wangaratta gave me Bec and Todd's welcome, Lisa walking me out to Bowser Station, David Evans riding back for a chat, and Deb already working ahead in Albury-Wodonga.
Wangaratta was cold and wintry, but the people were warm.
After the excitement of reaching Glenrowan the night before, Monday morning was back to the very practical business of getting up, getting layered, and getting moving again. Victoria still had plenty of winter left in it, and I was still wearing enough yellow to be visible from another postcode.
By a little after 8am, we had reached Wangaratta.
Waiting there were Bec and her young lad Todd, who had come out as a welcome committee. They also made a donation to the Heart Foundation, which meant there would be a Lock in the Love heart with their names on it.
That sort of thing never became normal, no matter how many times it happened. Someone had seen what we were doing, decided it mattered enough to come out in the cold, and then handed over money for the cause as well.
Wangaratta did not just welcome me in. It escorted me out.
Lisa joined me for about seven kilometres along the rail trail to Bowser Station, where her husband Shane was waiting to drive her back afterwards. I joked at the time that I had been “welcomed into Wangaratta and then escorted out lol”, which was exactly the sort of thing that amused me when I was tired enough.
The walk with Lisa covered plenty of the normal road-chat subjects: the local area, parkrun, running goals, and her TNF 100 goal. But the biggest part of the conversation was about Lisa and Shane’s four-year-old, Ely, and the amount of time and effort they put into HeartKids Australia support and fundraising.
HAA’s main charity focus was the Heart Foundation, but heart stories were never as tidy as one organisation or one logo. Meeting people connected to HeartKids added another dimension to everything.
Lisa and Shane were exactly the sort of people I kept meeting on the way across: friendly, supportive, generous with their time, and somehow able to make a very strange thing feel completely understood for a while.
By mid-afternoon I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I was lost for adequate words, and the generosity and kindness being shown to the three HAAmigos was blowing me away.
Part of that was what was already forming ahead of us in Albury-Wodonga.
I had not met Deb yet, but she was already busy there, talking to local businesses and media and getting people behind HAA. That afternoon I found out that Kevin, the General Manager at Quest Albury on Townsend, had donated a two-bedroom apartment for us to stay in the next night.
We had not even crossed into New South Wales yet, and support was already waiting there.
Later in the day, company appeared again.
David Evans, a local farmer and keen cyclist with the Wangaratta BUGS, had ridden past me, then found the campervan further down the road and seen the HAA stickers. He rode back towards me and said, “you must be Gary Wilmot”.
He kept me company for a few kilometres, and the pace picked up while we chatted about fitness, running, cycling and farming.
That still feels like a perfect bit of roadside company. I was on a quiet road running parallel to the Hume, which made it easy for David to ride slowly beside me and talk. I was fine walking on my own, and sometimes I needed that, but days like this reminded me how good it could be when someone joined me for a while.
The distance still had to be done, of course.
By the time I stopped at Chiltern, Day 87 had turned into a 55.2 kilometre day. Even after everything we had already done, that was still a long way to walk.
By the end of the day, Wodonga and Albury were close enough to stop sounding like places on a sign and start feeling like tomorrow’s business.
It had been cold, wintry, and long.
It had not been lonely.
Videos From The Day
Frogs In The Dark
A short clip from the wet, dark final session near Chiltern, recorded for the sound of frogs beside the road.
Open on YouTubeImages From The Day
