I signed up a few weeks ago to walk for a cure, to help research into juvenile diabetes. I didn’t collect any sponsorship $$ as I am handing over $20 and the book to the office tomorrow. I just wanted to go for a walk with friends and see what it was like.
It ended up being a 7km walk around the river, up across to the rail bridge, down through East Perth, behind Trinity College and Gloucester Park, and across the Causeway back to the original spot in Burswood Park. There was bad music, face painting, cheap tshirts, sausages being sizzled, screaming kids, fat dogs, skinny dogs, big dogs and rat dogs. People on bikes, skateboards, rollerblades, with prams which were used as ramming devices to get through the crowds and uncontrolled helium-filled balloons which would attack you at any given moment before being released to the sky.
Apart from the chaos, it was also perfect. The sun was shining warming up your body on one side, and a cool breeze on the other side. Once we got onto the other side of the river and started the return leg, the chilled part of the body warmed up again in the sun whilst the other side cooled down. I was reminded of Rottnest, where the lakes are in the middle. The smell of salt in the air from the river, the clouds dotted around the sky, the brown reeds and grass mixed in with the brown foamy water. Obviously as we walked past the golf course, there were the few golf balls floating around the water behind the big fence which marked the driving range.
My friend J and I cut some corners as we crossed the river and made our way down to the shoreline from the bridge. We heard some mutters but what made me laugh the most was a kid shouting “Cheaters!!” Classic stuff. I probably would have said the same thing if I was the kid, but I’m not and buggered if I was not going to trim a few metres off that 7km trek, since you never knew when you might need those metres elsewhere.
As I was walking in the corporate team, I was wearing the obligatory cap and shirt, which thankfully wasn’t too embarrassing. There were heaps of corporate teams, Boral with yellow and white shirts, Optus with yellow shirts, AHS (whoever they were - white) A few law firms around, Australia Post with cool red shirts, the Burswood events staff were walking, with bright pink shirts (poor guys). A few courier companies, but I didn’t see many isp’s at all. Not many people from my section of the call centre were there, but a few others so I met a few new people and got to know them. We got to the end of the walk finally, to see a few more people we didn’t see before and had a feed of hotdogs. I stole a chicken sausage aswell and felt like I could have kept walking for a few more kms.
I also bumped into a friend of mine at the walk (works for optus) who has confused me and I’ll have to figure out when he broke up with his GF of 3 yrs. He has started dating another old friend of mine whom he was interested in but never hooked up with due to her being too young/immature to appreciate him and now she does! I never thought he’d last with the other chick, but I also never thought he’d get the girl he’s liked for ages. J thought the look on my face was classic.
After the walk, I fixed up my bathroom, putting grout paint onto the grout to clean up the mildew and mould stains that I couldn’t remove by cleaning. Now the shower looks new and I don’t feel like crying every time I look at it anymore. I cleaned the kitchen sink and put drano down the sink hole that causes me problems. Drano seems to work for a few weeks and then an ungodly stench makes its way up every time I use that particular sink. It’s quite embarrassing. I can hear when the people upstairs from me use the water and the people downstairs because the sound from the drains can be heard through the sink, so it’s not me that’s making that smell!
I might do that 7km walk more often however. I really enjoyed it. I’ll see if I can get the energy to walk it at least once a fortnight. It’s definitely worth a go.
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