Amy's diary entry 10

Walking into the Wallabadah pub, everyone knew who we were and the drinks were waiting for us..

I asked a local if we could say hi to the pigs in his ute out the front. They were so cute - the one with the straight tail was a bit shy (I would be too) but the other two couldn't have been more excited to see us, oinking away as they do. I asked the bloke (after convincing the others that they must be his pets) how long they would live and really wished I hadn't. 17 mins left.

After Brian successfully stabbed himself in his leg trying to sit at the table and hold his knife and fork at the same time, we sat down to dinner - pork chops and spare ribs. Hmmmm. At least there was plenty of salad.

I have been practicing my yodelling for the Rex Dallas Stretch Walker performance at the Wallabadah pub on Saturday. It should be a cracker of a day - I predict Rex will ask me to record a CD with him as it really would be a top seller.

Now that the team was shown how honey gets made we all think we're experts. Never mind the bee stings - the Walk With a Rose professional honey makers are a tough lot.

I now know the trick to getting a cow to lick your hand. And nearly eat if off. What you have to do is: not wash your hands after making honey, slowly approach one by softly yodelling, then when it hasn't run away and is actually staring longingly at your hands, realise that it has smelt the honey is really hungry.

We are now in the upper Hunter Valley. It took over an hour to walk past the Emerates horse stud yesterday - it was huge. We have walked over the last of the Great Dividing Range (thanks be to God) and the road ahead looks pretty flat. More and more people are pulling over every day to donate money or buy a t shirt. Most people feel sorry for us and offer lifts - even if they know about the walk!

Amy's diary entry 9

Our time in Tamworth has been the funniest couple of days - I really dont think anything will beat it...

After we finally, finally made it from Balandeen (where I smashed my head so badly on a metal frame the only thing stopping me from passing out was a two-hour-long need to go potty) we quickly showered and raced over to our reception.

The reception was great, once again we met a lot of people and were congratulated on our efforts. Then I had an idea. In mid-conversation, very cooly and calmly, I dropped a hint at my yodelling interest...and that is what let us to Rex Dallas, the four-time Golden Guitar winner (for yodelling) legend who invited us to his studio in Moonbi for a once-in-a-lifetime yodelling lesson opportunity.

So off we went. I was confident as ever that my on-road practicing would surely pay off and Rex would see no need for me to take lessons. Wrong.

The air was filled with interesting sounds coming from Rex's studio that afternoon. It is possible, I was told, that with practice (a few years worth, minimum) I may one day be able to call myself a yodeller.

We drove away from Rex's house with his CD blaring in the bus and my newly improved yodelling voice getting better my the minute when the suggestion was made that if I was going to bust out some tunes at the Country Music Festival next year I needed a name. After a few interesting suggestions were thrown about, it was decided... Stretch Walker.

The next day Brian got a tattoo. He claims not a tear was shed, but on lookers tell me otherwise. We did manage to capture the whole event, in detail, on film - one of those behind-the-scenes films that may have to be destroyed before our return...

Amy's diary entry 8

I am now a lot older and wiser, having turned the big 23 on Friday. That was a strange day actually. I saw a chook on the side of the road. There were no houses around and no obvious chook pen to be seen...just a lone brown chook clucking about minding its own business. When I went to try and catch it, it nearly pecked my finger off. I was just going to carry it to safety into the next town, but the cranky thing didn't like the look of me and hid behind a tree.

We arrived in Armidale at 4pm on Sunday afternoon, greeted by the local member of Parliament, Richard Torbay, and students from various schools along with members of the community and Challenge Armidale. It was such a great feeling, having walked since 6am, to see a whole group of people waiting to welcome us, clapping and cheering. As we all walked into town there was so much chatter and excitement about, the last thing anyone expected was someone dressed up as a moose...?

The following day was one of the greatest days on the trip. I spoke at several schools in Armidale including PLC, O'conner Catholic High, Armidale High, Duval High, New England Girls School and The Armidale School. It was a strange feeling, walking into an entire school assembly, knowing that they were all there to listen to what I had to say. I am only a few years older than some of them, I thought to myself - why would they take me seriously? So I explained myself to all the students before I spoke. I wasn't there to preach or pretend I was better than they were, because that's not what this is about. I'm not an athlete, politician or movie star. I'm just a Uni student, I had an idea and am making it work. Simple. This, I hope, helped everyone (including myself) feel a little more comfortable and I was able to speak about ABI and what the walk was all about with ease, knowing that if I made a mistake, needed to sneeze or tripped in my heels it was ok because I'm as normal as they are!

We were then taken to the Armidale Dumaresq Council Chambers for a reception with the Mayor of Armidale, Peter Ducat, representitives from: various councils, Colleges, the Police Force, the Catholic Church, Challenge Armidale, reporters and members of the community. The Walk With a Rose project was spoken about very highly, we were congratulated and praised by all. Then it was my turn to speak. I've never been one to write speeches - the way I see it, if I don't know what I'm talking about then there's no point being there. I spoke about everything; how the walk came about, the many many people who have made it all happen, the journey so far and the team. I am often congratulated for my efforts but my hat goes off to the team here with me. Nothing is a problem for these guys, most dramas are fixed without me even knowing there was a problem.

Our departure from Armidale was also a very special one, the local police walked out of town with us along with students from various schools, members of the community, Challenge Armidale and the local media. My name was mistakenly pronounced Amy Bantom so the guys got a laugh out of it by clucking at me.

It was very quiet once everyone had left and it was just us again...so you can imagine the excitement when (whilst having lunch in the almighty bus) a cyclist came aboard to give us a donation and meet the crew. We bombarded him with questions and stories and laughter, made him sit down and have lunch with us and whipped out the cameras for a new face to capture. As much as the on-road team love eachother, it's always nice to have a fresh face.

Brian and I had a ripper of a day yesterday. We spent about 6 hours walking the road, talking rubbish as we do. We came across about four UFO landing spots, played 'I spy' (he cheated), played quoits with a rubber hoop we found and the white reflector poles (he's actually pretty good at that) then practiced yodelling together. Had a good tune going there for a while...then my throat started to hurt. Yodelling over and over again for long periods of time whilst trying to raise your voice higher and louder than your competitor and the passing trucks is quite a mission. I think I may get lucky with finding a yodelling instructor in Tamworth. Brian thinks I need lessons but I think fine-tuning a natural gift is all I need.

By now I could be running my own P plate business we pass so many on the road. As he is yet to be classified as a fully fledged walker, Brian found a very attractive belt on the road, put it on and stuck a P plate in it on his back. Good look.

I saw the most magnificant cow of all my sightings yesterday. It had a black back with a white tummy and a white head with black ears. It was the biggest of all and was all alone, as if to say no other cows were worthy of it's company. Brian made reference to the two hairs sticking out of the wart on the left leg of a fly that he reckons was sitting on the cows tail but seriously, the cow was stunning.

Today I walked to Bendemeer. Just as I was turning the corner into town I passed one of those big green signs (facing the other way). The end destination was Brisbane, 543k's. I was proud.

Amy's diary entry 7

Well we’re halfway between Deep Water and Glen Innes and not a cow in sight. I’m learning to cope.

Today a piece of metal got stuck in my shoe. It was long and thin and I was too lazy to bend down and pull it out. For three hours my footsteps were accompanied by the sound of metal scraping against tar. At first it was an interesting change – a new beat to sing songs to which gave me a whole lot of new song options. Then I couldn’t think of anymore songs that fit into the beat (and I learnt my lesson about making up songs yesterday when I decided if there was going to be a song about Tenterfield there needed to be a song about Deep Water…) so I decided to take the piece of metal out. This decision was a big one for me, that’s why I’m raving on about it so much – when I’m in full stride down the highway and have been building up speed for a few hours and I’m on a mission to find cows, it takes a lot to make me stop. Point of the story? After all that, the damn thing came out – fell out, I should say, after I had stopped and started to lift my foot to my hand.

We had a team ‘discussion’ a few hours ago about whether Winerama was a type of sheep, dog, or eighties band. Naturally, this lead to my confession about always wanting to learn how to yodel. I hope Glen Innes has a yodel instructor free this arvo – need to squeeze in a few lessons before karaoke tonight.

We have two new members to our team. Tex, (I have been sworn to secrecy regarding the nickname) and Justin. Justin is the Walk With a Rose champion pool player and is yet to acquire a nickname but this shouldn’t take long. Pete has returned to Canberra for personal reasons.

I washed by hair yesterday. And yes, in case you were wondering, that is a statement in itself.

Amy's diary entry 6

Hey hey I found a computer! I met a lovely man here in Deep Water who let me use the computer in his house. We met at the pub and he warned me that his house was at the other end of the town so we'd have to drive. I would have called it just around the corner, as it was pretty much just around one corner, but at the same time he was right - it was the other side of town.

Needless to say, Deep Water is a lovely little town. Little, little town. Population 355 give or take 5 depending on whether a charity walk is passing through... But hey, we're going to be doubling the attendance at the Progress Society meeting tonight so that's exciting!

The last few days have been an absolute ball - much like the first few days. I drove the van earlier to where we had to start the day's walking from and me being me forgot to check that there was enough petrol to get us there. Ah well, at least we ran out on the top of a hill not the bottom. That's the positive I found in the situation anyway. Unfortunately the others couldn't see my point. I don't think there was a point actually, I just thought it sounded good at the time.

I apologise if my mood isn't as cheery as it has been. In fact I do feel a little down right now. The last few days I've been walking and walking and walking and searching and searching but there's very few cows about. Practically none. I heard a faint mooo a few hours ago but I'm starting to believe it was my imagination.

The team has come a long way in thirteen days. We had a decent minus five morning today, and I hear the road to Glen Innes is going to be a chilly one in the morning, but regardless of the temperature we did have a small victory today (a day early, I'll admit - any excuse to celebrate). Walk With a Rose is 25% closer to home. I think we're just about to enter the 'thick' of the walk. That is, the...post - honeymoon, pre - halfway mark part where we've really got to make things work. There has been some interesting challenges and some amazing victories and we're barely sitting on 2 weeks. I write this with a smile on my face, though, knowing that we are an amazing team and we really are setting very high goals and doing a fantastic job in achieving them. Every day. I just hope there's some nice cows to look at tomorrow.

Amy's diary entry 5

We bought the Stanthorpe paper yesterday and made it to page three with a great pic of us walking into town... "At a leisurely pace" it read, on our way To Brisbane FROM Canberra. We must've looked like we were making damm good time for having been on the road for only 8 days....

Walked a easy pezzy 18kms yesterday as we were all really keen to check out this "Bald Rock"- we had seen the signs the day before. So we walked the walk( another new breed of cow would you believe - light brown with tuffs of blonde hair) and went over to Bald Rock. I think we all thought we just could drive there, see the rock, take some photo's and be done with it. But no. This rock, might I add the largest granite rock in Oz, was a 1.2km practaically vertial climb and we all had the same opinion - we had come this far, we can't just not climb it. I hate it when teams spend so much time together they think alike.

So we climbed the rock. All should I say we somehow managed to scramble up the face of some massively steep piece of granite, knowing that the slightest glance in the downward direction would be seriously regretted but not been able to resist looking anyway. Then seriously regretting it. I am speaking for myself here I should add - and yes, stretch is afraid of heights.

Trying to control the giggles after seeing Brian's deathdefying flight down the gravel path from tripping over a stone( funnily enough only he saw the stone) we arrived back at the bus and arranged our goodies on the table for lunch. By goodies I mean leftovers that had to be eaten. HAD to be eaten.

The only food that wasn't about to grow legs and run off into the distance was our cheese. It only makes sense then, with the way the world works, that a kookaburra would position himself on a overhanging branch, get his bearings just right and swoop across the table in order to steal the cheese - still in the packet - out of Pete's hands and over to his mates. Nice one. He then decided( the thief kookaburra, not Pete) that the cheese wasn't quite dead enough and proceeded to bash it, in his beck, against a rock. Over and over again. He was really gathering momentum and force at one stage - one miss and he was sure to knock himself out. At least we got the last laugh.

Amy's diary entry 4

I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow last night. Got up nice and early and started the stroll from Dalveen to Stanthorpe. Stroll is a nice word and I like to use it . . . just going for a stroll from Brisbane to Canberra. It's this type of language that convinced me it could be done - now I've just got to make sure the legs keep striding it out.

I lost two bucks on a bet yesterday that Dalveen had a pub. The local (note: not plural) was amused when I asked directions to the drinking lounge. Apparently the closest we were going to get was the town hall on a Friday night. Byo.

Walked past a deer farm today. I then thought how cool it would be to have a pet deer, and whether I could take my deer for a walk through downtown Stanthorpe or better yet - teach my pet deer to fetch a ball. I then felt bad for admiring the deer when there were some great cows to look at and I then started up a conversation with Pete to stop my thoughts getting too weird.

It's my turn to cook dinner for the crew tonight. With all these animals around I decided pasta was the go. Anything to avoid negative vibes from the upcoming cattle of Tenterfield.

Amy's diary entry 3

Day 6 got off to a cracking good start when I left the kitchen tap running full blast then decided to pack away my sleeping bag, then re-arrange my clothes so they actually fit back into the bag they came out of then find the blue stripey beanie that I wanted to wear today then...yep. Water all over our van floor and in the cutlery draws. Then, from out of nowhere, young bus talent Brian whipped out the mop and had the situation under controll in no time. Quite the experienced water overflow cleaner this man.

Had a long day today, covered some good ground. Saw a new breed of cow too, which was interesting.

It's funny the things you think about and habits you get into when you're walking for hours on end. I have now mastered the art of positioning my drink bottle in my hand in such a way that there is no water movement noises when I walk. Oh and today I broke my record for the longest time I could walk directly on top of the white line at the edge of the road. Then my neck got really sore from looking at my feet for so long.

200k's have been walked. The wind has become cooler and the days a little less sunny and about the only thing on my mind right now is bed!

Amy's diary entry 2

Brian made some friends last night with our neighbours in the caravan park and organised a cuppa tea date in our van for 7:30am. We were all up early, excitedly cleaning the little van for our first visitors and then waited. And waited. Just as the first of what was to be many pay outs for being stood up had begun they showed up and we pounced on the opportunity to talk to other travellers and hear their stories.

The continuation of day 5 greeted us with an awesome article in the Warwick Daily Times – front page beauty! We feel very special in this little town. In saying that, though, I think people feel a bit sorry for us too – we came across a fruit shop that was closed (we didn't see the 'closed' sign till after we nearly broke down the door) and just as we were walking off the lovely fruiterer gave us two cold apples each and his best wishes for our journey. Those apples were the tastiest pieces of fruit I have ever experienced.

Walked past a speed camera today. I figured the poor guy sitting in the van could use a good laugh so I went back a few paces and speed-walked past the van a few times trying to clock up a good reading. Unfortunately he wasn't impressed.

There are some really good looking cows in this town. Sometimes I try to strike conversations with them but you know what cows are like. Walking past one field there was a bunch of at least 20 black beauties munching away like they do and I thought I'd try to make their day a bit more interesting. Maybe I'd have more luck with them than the bored speed camera man. So I belted out a hearty 'moooo' and low and behold they all started running over to me! Well I was out of there like a flash – these legs of mine had a python flashback and went into 'must move really fast now' mode.

I must note here that Brian's bus driving skills have improved immensely. His true talent has really begun to shine through. Apart from driving down a one way street and freaking out the poor local Ipswicheans, he got a bit excited about taking us downtown to the Internet cafe and took off without closing the boot. Only lost a few sleeping bags but at least we gave the on-lookers a few laughs.

We have now completed our catch-up walking in Warwick. Today was a 32km day, tomorrow will be a 41km day from Warwick to Dalveen. I might keep to myself around black cows tomorrow.

Amy's diary entry 1

Hi everyone! We put up a quick entry a few hours ago but I’m now going to add details!

I will be running the Walk With a Rose blog like a diary from now on. It will be my personal story of the whole project, updated every three days max. I really want to keep you all up to date on the highs and lows of the walk as there have been so so so many people help the walk get to where it is now and I want to keep you all as involved as I can!

Let’s go back a few days…to Thursday, the final, long – awaited send off from the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. I woke up early (not that I slept much) with that little-kid feeling in my stomach like it was Christmas day. This was to be such a memorable day – and everything had to be just right.

Of course anyone who knows me well would completely understand why we got stuck in a lift on level one going from ground to level two when we were two mins away from doing a live cross with the Today Show – I just have really good luck. So it was 9:05 and I was supposed to start walking at 9am and we were standing around not knowing whether to laugh or cry or have a tantrum when a doctor stuck in the lift with us spoke up and mentioned his name – Doctor Stuckey. What are the chances.

Great start to the day! We finally got walking on what was to be a 40ish day walk. Brisbane to Ipswich – pretty straight forward, right? Wrong. I am one of those talented people with a special sense of direction – it is possible that we walked around in large circles at one stage – anyway we made it in the end. Only took an extra few hours walking, no big deal.

We were graciously taken in by a family who were members of the Rotary club in Ipswich and had steak and veggies waiting for us at their home. It was the best steak and veggies I’d ever eaten.

That night I slept with the biggest grin on my face ever! We had survived our first day with only a few minor dramas and figured – if being stuck in the lift with Doctor Stuckey and missing the Today Show then taking the extra long way from Brisbane to Ipswich was the worst thing we were to encounter on the two month mission we were doing ok!

Ipswich to Amberley on Friday nearly gave me a heart failure when I missed stepping on the head of a python when attempting to navigate my way under a bridge. I think poor Pete had ringing in his ears for a while after that due to my squeal – as my dad would say, ‘we nearly had to go to the dry-cleaners’.

My near-death python experience called for a cold one so we de-briefed at the pub and chewed the fat.

I went on the Warwick Community Radio this morning with Russell. My interview straight after news that a lady had tried to marry a snake but the snake failed to show up to the wedding - ? After about the sixth time he called me Amy Brown I gave up trying to correct him. All went well though, and we love it here. Woke up so cold that you could see your breath and not may people out for a morning walk at 5:30am but it is a beautiful, clean place and the days are still quite warm.

We had to drive 96 kms from Amberley to Warwick because we were not legally able to walk that section. That’s why we will be spending three days here – making up the driven distance by walking the outskirts of Warwick – 32k’s a day for 3 days. We have once again been looked after by some lovely people here in Warwick with. Tomorrow is our third day here then we head to Dalveen. There’s only one road to Dalveen so with any luck I won’t get lost.