Bushwalk for Cancer

Photo of Wilsons Promontory by avlxyz – Flickr

There are many fundraisers to support research into cancer but not many entail a 6,000 kilometre year-long walk across the length of a continent.

Yet that is the method school teacher Michael Mitchell chose when he decided to raise money for Australia’s Cancer Council.

The idea came to him in 2000 when walking through the Victorian Alps in southern Australia with friends, one of whom had a sister battling cancer at the time. As they talked about raising money for the purchase of wigs to help those who lost their hair due to chemotherapy, Michael pondered what could be done to help fight cancer on a larger scale.

“It made me think about what a bloke could do if he planned it,” he explains.

So began eight years of intermittent planning for what would become the Great Australian Cancer Bushwalk, to draw attention to the needs of cancer sufferers and their families and to raise funds for research, as well at to promote the value of bushwalking.

Setting off

Michael’s walk from the north to the south of the Australian mainland began on 5 May 2008 in Cape York. At the time of setting off, Michael set himself the ambitious target of raising $AUD 1 million for the Cancer Council.

At a pace of about 4 kilometres per hour or about 25 kilometres per day, Michael covered 1,000 kilometres, following the old Overland Telegraph Line through the interior of the Cape York Peninsula.

Near the town of Mt Molloy in Queensland, Michael then joined the Bicentennial National Trail and followed it for the next 4,000 kilometres to the nation’s capital, Canberra.

From there, he followed the Australian Alps Walking Track to the historic town of Walhalla in Victoria. The journey continued through the picturesque hills of South Gippsland down to South Cape on Wilsons Promontory (known fondly to locals as ‘The Prom’) which is the southernmost tip of the Australian mainland. He completed his epic walk on 3 May 2009 after 363 days spent living in a one-person tent and wearing out eight pairs of walking boots.

So what of his ambitious fundraising target?

“In the end I didn’t get it right,” Michael says. “There is no rule book on how to do these things.”

Fundraising challenges

He says he received fantastic support from local media in towns he traversed during his walk but says somewhat wryly that his trouble-free walk without incident meant that it was less newsworthy.“Some sort of disaster would have raised attention,” he concedes.

He also says he underestimated the difficulties of getting mainstream national media to cover his epic journey.

However, there was also another unforeseeable event that jeopardised his fundraising plans: the tragedy of the Black Saturday bushfires in February 2009 that ravaged Victoria. At the time, Michael was walking though the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. Schools throughout both NSW and Victoria had received information about his walk and education departments of both states were eager to help. However, come Black Saturday, there was only one issue on the mind of most Australians—bushfire recovery.

“Most money for the walk was to be raised in its final stages as it neared completion,” he says. “The bushfires on 7 February meant as a fundraiser, the walk was dead in the water.”

However, he remains rightly proud of the $50,000 he did raise for the Cancer Council and says the year of walking was “the best 12 months of my life”.

The highlight, he says, were the people he met along the way who inspired him to continue and who shared their own stories of being touched by cancer.

“There were stories of triumph and survival as well as the tragedy of death and severe pain and suffering. I began to feel quite proud that what I was doing and why I was doing it was being very appreciated by these strangers,” he says.
The other aspect of the journey that made a huge impact on Michael was walking itself.

“I feel privileged to have seen a snapshot of the country from north to south. One issue I did form some views on was the need to protect – yet not necessarily lock up – the beautiful bush of Australia,” he says.

“The fact that we have such a vast number of national and state parks is surely a story of success. To pass through not only national parks but world heritage listed regions was simply an honour.”

The magic of parks

However, what Michael calls his ‘watershed moment’ actually came in 2010 when he took students from the East Gippsland Specialist School where he now teaches for a three day walk back to the location where his Great Australian Cancer Bushwalk was completed: Wilsons Prom. What he witnessed was the impact that being in nature had on these children and what they learnt both about the bush and about themselves.

“While walking across the continent was great in itself as a feat of personal achievement, it has been encouraging and leading others to get out there, and experience our parks, which has been even more satisfying.”

Since his walk, as well as returning to teaching, Michael has been busy on the talk circuit continuing to raise money for the Cancer Council. He is undertaking further study to gain a specialised diploma in teaching children with autism. He has a book underway detailing his experiences of walking the length of Australia. And he still enjoys walking regularly.

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