The CrossingToward Nhill

The Nhill Welcome

Melbourne was 402 kilometres away, or only 80 parkruns in HAA language. Karen and Katie chatted from horseback along the way, and Dorothy gave us a generous welcome at Nhill Caravan Park.

Date26 July 2015

Journey dayDay 72

The Nhill town welcome sign on Day 72 of Hearts Across Australia — Nhill arrived with the sign, the pronunciation joke, and one more town name made real under my feet.

The day after crossing into Victoria, everything felt a little recalibrated.

Crossing into Victoria had not made the distance any smaller, but a new state changes the way the map sits in your head. South Australia was behind us. Melbourne was ahead. Ballarat, Horsham and the Albert Melbourne parkrun weekend were no longer distant ideas. They were real places and dates we were walking towards.

Kaniva gave me painted pigs, an old Bank of New South Wales building and quiet pre-dawn streets before the walking took over.

After about 12 kilometres, a sign gave me another milestone - Melbourne, 402 kilometres or, in the standard unit of measure employed by HAA:

Only 80 parkruns to go.

That was maths my brain could handle. It didn’t make the distance short, but it made it funny for a while. I also wished everyone back in Perth well for the Swan River Run and Goldfields Pipeline Marathon.

The scenery kept changing too. Victoria was green and open, but not settled into one mood. There were blue skies, darker clouds, rainbows, paddocks, tree lines and little roadside details that kept catching my attention. Weather never really stayed in the background on HAA. It shaped the day, the clothing, the timing, the rests, the mood, and the photos.

About 6 kilometres from Nhill, I saw what looked like two people walking toward me on the track beside the highway. As they got closer, I realised they were a bit tall for walkers.

They were Karen and Katie, mum and daughter, riding Pebbles and Ned. Roxy the dog was there too, camera shy and unsure what to make of the bloke in hi-vis. We stopped and chatted beside the highway.

Nhill had been occupying my mind since the previous day, mainly because I had been trying to work out how to pronounce it. Nil? Neil? Na-hill? Silent n? By the time I arrived, the answer seemed to be nil, which was probably the least dramatic option, but still enough for a hashtag.

The bigger welcome came at Nhill Caravan Park. Dorothy gave us a powered ensuite site for free. Not a discount. Not a kind word and a wave. A free powered ensuite site after a 57 kilometre day.

I posted that Dorothy was a lovely lady with a big heart and generous spirit, and I meant it. Her powered site and bed gave us warmth, showers and privacy before the next day.

Dorothy somehow put me in mind of my Mum, perhaps through a combination of her kindness and the fact they shared a first name. I also discovered that Dorothy had passed away at the end of 2022, which turned the memory into a mixed one. Her kindness genuinely touched my heart, and I have mentioned it many times over the years.

Rest in peace, Dorothy.

That night I was also thinking about Run Down Under. I was logging my HAA kilometres there as part of a virtual run around Australia, and I worked out that my virtual marker might reach Perth by the time I reached Canberra in real life. Possibly even by Albury.

That amused me. I was crossing the country for real, but there was also this other version of the journey happening online, with other people able to walk, run or crawl their own kilometres and feel connected to the thing in their own way.

I reached Nhill after another 57 kilometres. Dorothy had given us a powered site and a bed, and Melbourne was 80 parkruns away.