Eve Lamb
Chances are you may have seen them as they passed through Castlemaine last week.
Twelve blistered but very determined walkers who stopped for a lunch break at Victory Park as they walked all the way from Ballarat’s Mount Buninyong to Bendigo.
A bit of leg weariness was not about to stop them as they strode out over the 240 km it was taking to complete Gerri’s Journey, a walk to honour the life of Gerri Stevens, wife of former Guildford (now Bendigo) local Ron Stevens and mother of their four children – Mark, Katie, Greg and Leigh.
The family lost Gerri to blood cancer in November 2020 and decided to take on the big walk as a very special way to honour her life and raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation to boot.
“We’ve already raised about $35,000 and every cent is going to the Leukaemia Foundation,” said Ron as he stopped to chat to the Express when the walkers hit Castlemaine on Thursday, having set out on Monday.
They completed the walk in stages, with some support vehicles ferrying them back, each evening, to accommodation that a Musk-based accommodation venue had generously donated for their cause.
“We’ve called our walk Gerri’s Journey. It’s 240km the whole way and we’re following the Goldfields Track,” Ron said.
“We’ve got 12 walkers doing the whole walk with us but for the last leg on Friday we’ve got 70 people registered to walk with us from Mount Alexander in Harcourt to Bendigo.”
Sporting compression tights to help cope with the more challenging terrain, Gerri and Ron’s son Leigh said the walk was not only one of the most memorable things the family has ever done together, it was also eye-opening.
“I’m surprised as to how much awareness it’s raised,” Leigh said.
“The number of people who have walked up to us to say someone close to them has died of leukaemia… There’s so many families affected by this.”
Ron felt certain that his wife was looking on from some dimension, watching them every step of the way.
“There are times when the kids have been walking along and they have burst into tears,” he said.
“We feel her with us, we really do… She would be so proud.”
The super-organised family, who are staunch supporters of the Kangaroo Flat Football Netball Club, even set up a Facebook page for their special walk, and had special commemorative t-shirts and sweat-shirts printed in Gerri’s favourite colours – “pink and purple”. And that’s not all.
“We’re also having football and netball matches against Kyneton at the Kangaroo Flat Football Netball Club on May 7 with all proceeds going to the Leukaemia Foundation as well,” Ron said.
“And as a windup we’re having a gala auction night at the All Seasons on May 21 with all proceeds going to the Foundation.”
