AUSSIE CAMINO
218 km - 183km - 163km – How long is a piece of string? Just ask my feet!
The Aussie Camino is advertised as a 218km walk from Portland to Penola, retracing
the footsteps (and horsesteps and Cobb and Co ruts) made by Mary and Julian across
this territory over the years they lived and worked in this district. One 35km stretch is
so rugged, it is recommended for only the most experienced walkers who could carry
their own camping equipment and so was deleted from our route. We had a driver and
nineteen walkers, five of whom (including me) had never walked consecutive longs
days before. Most of the others had done the Spanish Camino, some more than once,
others had done other walks and several had done the Aussie Camino before. We were
encouraged to do whatever we could manage, but not to pull out so as to give our
fellow pilgrims at least our moral support. I managed all but 20km of the walk. In
hindsight, I was very glad I had decided to ride one six kilometre section. It was a
beach stretch and for most of the way they encountered seaweed that was up to half a
metre deep. Two people lost their shoes in it!
That 6km was part of a 30km day. I also rode 14km of our 37km day. I didn’t want to
push my luck too far. By then, I had two small blisters on toes on my left foot and a
small sore spot that didn’t seem to be a blister on a toe of my right foot. The blisters
weren’t sore and we were all carrying a ‘chemist shop’ and all had different types of
bandaids, creams, lotions, etc. We were also lucky to have three nurses in the group.
So, there was plenty of support. The ‘sore spot’ seemed to be on the edge of the
toenail, so I presumed it was the nail pressing on the toe, so cut it back a bit – big
mistake. It turned out to be the beginning of a blister UNDER the nail. When I cut it
back, the blister had even more room to move, so I ended up with an ugly-looking toe,
even though, thank God, it wasn’t sore. The nurses assured me I would eventually
lose the nail. The fact that it wasn’t sore probably meant that the nail had already
died! Just a little war wound I can skite about! Others fared much worse, with huge
blisters on their heels and even under their feet. Some missed two or more days of
walking as they tried to manage the blisters. One of the nurses ended up with an
infection on both feet.
While it wasn’t always an enjoyable experience, it was a very worthwhile one. Over
seven days, I walked 41 hours. The shortest day was 5 hours and the longest 7.5
hours. The remainder of the waking hours was spent in the company of those same
nineteen people and most sleeping hours were spent in the company of at least one
other person. On one night, Carmel and I found ourselves booked in for a double bed!
That was a bit too much sharing, so they found us another room!
We had two priests in the group, one a walker, the other the support person. That
meant we had Mass most days, which was an added bonus. It was lovely to have a
intimate group around a table in a b&b or in a small country church. In the Penola
church, which is not the original church, although on the same spot, they have the
chandelier from Julian’s original church and one of their projects for the 150th next
year, is to have it done up.
There are lots of stories I could tell, but I’ll do just one – the flying nun! One stretch
was intended to include about 10km walking along a disused railway track. This is
very difficult walking. The grass is long as cattle can’t get in there. The sleepers are
too far apart to be used as stepping stones, so we are walking on the ballast – small
stones. After a couple of km of this, one bright spark decided we should descend in to
the paddocks – surely the farmer wouldn’t mind! For the first few fences, that was
fine, we could stretch the wires and crawl through or under. Then, we must have
changed farms, because we came to a fence that was brand new – so no sagging wires
that would easily stretch - and it was electrified. Our only option was to go over.
That’s no mean feat when you have to avoid electric wires. Then we discovered we
had about ten of these to negotiate. Getting back on the line would have been a better
option – just once over this fence, but we didn’t take that option!! We just pressed on.
I managed most of them, but came to one that my short little legs just could not get
over. I managed to get on to the top rail, but then it was too far to jump. I ended up
over the shoulder of ‘big John’, with my feet in the air and my head and hands down
his back. That was bad enough, but then he wouldn’t put me down – kept swinging
me around, saying he had the flying nun on board! I hope it doesn’t make it onto
YouTube. The cameras were certainly out!
I discovered that I am the first Josephite to have done the walk. That made the entry into Penola
very special, a feeling I’ll treasure. There are two Josephites living there and one was on hand to
greet us. She was really excited to have a Josephite do it. I really felt I was part of the Mary
MacKillop story. Strangely, I seemed to tell most of the stories about Julian, as we walked. I guess
a lot of people had at least a vague idea of Mary’s story, but no-one seemed to know much about
him. I hope my presence made the experience more real for them.
Everyone who has walked before assures us that we will soon want to do another one! I have to
admit I was very pleased to take my boots off for the last time. I don’t yet have the urge to start
looking for the next walk, but you never know. The time certainly flew. I don’t think there was
ever a time when I was looking at my watch. Sometimes I was walking with others, sometimes
alone. It just ebbed and flowed. It was often surprising to realise how far we had come, when I did
look at the time.
As we used to say in the old ‘composition’ days, ‘Everyone came home tired, but happy.’ I slept for
9.5 hours the night I got back to Brisbane!