Life has taught Sydney man Julian Day many lessons – not the least being that it’s too short to waste.
Every 18 months for the past 14 years, Julian has been walking the beaches of NSW – the first one from Sydney to Wollongong – just for his own satisfaction. But since that first walk he has sought sponsorship and has now raised more than $40,000 for cancer foundations.
Thanks to this latest walk, he has now traversed the entire NSW Coast – okay, he still has a small piece from Eden to the Victorian border, but he’s pretty close to finishing it now.
It’s a remarkable effort given that Julian has had several pretty significant brushes with his own mortality.
He fought childhood bone-marrow cancer an unheard of three times, a benign tumour in his ear that took the hearing in one ear and could have caused major neurological damage and deep vein thrombosis.
If all that wasn’t enough, just a few weeks ago he was hit by a golf ball at a charity golf day.
“It hit me here on the eyebrow,” he said, pointing to a still healing scar, as we met up at Salt Village after day one of his trek.
“A little lower and I could have lost my eyesight in that eye and a little further over it could have hit my temple and killed me.”
He said the incident, which was like “a million bells going off in my head”, left him with nine stitches in his head and almost saw this trip postponed. But, luckily for Julian (and the benefactors of this walk – the Make-A-Wish Foundation), he recovered in time to get his walking shoes on.
While Julian mainly walks alone along the beaches, he does get a lot of support along the way. Peppers at Salt and Mantra at Broadbeach both provided accommodation for this 210km six-day journey.
And while Julian admits he will be “sore for a while” after this walk, he said he was already planning his next trip which will “start from Brisbane and head north”.
Will he walk right round Australia? He’s a little evasive with this question, which he admits is one of the questions most often asked. “It’s taken me 14 years to get this far.”
However, he is hoping to get other Australians walking around the country’s beaches and waterways with a “Waterline Challenge” walk being organised for later in the year.
Julian said he hoped that the challenge would see people all around Australia walking along beaches or major rivers simultaneously to raise money for charity.
Meanwhile, if you have been inspired by Julian’s efforts, you can make a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
