Team A

The sky was overcast and light rain fell as we left our splendid accommodation at a house kindly offered to us for the night by Helen of Johanna River Farm and Cottages. It could have been perceived as a day for the rain-jacket but amazingly the sky cleared very quickly. We ran onwards on the Great Ocean Road through rolling hills of lush green grass, grazed by dairy cattle.

We came across a friend by the road who was very happy to see us.

The conditions were perfect for running. The sun began to shine brighter and brighter with a light breeze blowing over the land.

The road wound its way through the countryside passing over passive streams and rising over gentle hills before revealing the mighty ocean once more.

The coastline was spectacular with stunning cliffs and golden beaches. We stopped to admire the amazing sea stacks and sea arches which are known as the Twelve Apostles. Having been cut away from the coastline, they jut out majestically from the ocean high into the air.

We ventured down onto a beach enclosed by cliffs in order to get a closer look at the stacks. The ocean sent huge breaking waves hurtling towards the coast – it was a beautiful sight.

And then mischief started as Runar and Colm splashed or, should I say, soaked each other while running across the rolling surf.

Running in the afternoon was so enjoyable.

Peter has his last run with us along this stunning stretch of highway before heading back to Melbourne.

It felt like a mild summer's day with the sky so blue and the sun so bright; the grass so green on the right and the ocean so vast on the left. We even had time for a refreshing swim before making our way to the ceremony in Warrnambool.

– Colm Magee (Ireland)

Team B

Our day started with a spectacular tour of the Otway Fly (see report from Team C, below), then the winding drive through misty drizzle down the range from Lavers Hill to rejoin the Great Ocean Road.

Each of our teams today enjoyed the beauty and grandeur of the Twelve Apostles and other unique features of this magnificent coastline.

As an Australian, it is thrilling and deeply rewarding to see the appreciation of this wondrous continent experienced by our international runner-guests, renewing our gratitude for the privilege of being born here.

Along this stretch of road one feels the transience of all physical existence: for even the most solid of realities – the continent on which we stand – is crumbling against the onslaught of the sea before our eyes.

During one of the early Peace Runs, in 1991, we came along this very road and ran with the torch across a natural arch out onto the end of a famous feature known as London Bridge.

Just months later, the arch fell into the sea, leaving another lonely apostle (and a clutch of Japanese tourists) stranded. Returning 17 years later, the bridge is no more, the face of the continent has changed, but the flame we are honoured to carry remains ever the same, reaching from beyond continental time, from the very core of eternity.

After a morning absorbing the beauty and wonder of the rainforest and coastline, our running started in Peterborough. Almost immediately a passing motorist stopped and flagged us down. He turned out to be the photographer for a Warrnambool newspaper, come to photograph us for an upcoming story.

The Bay of Islands formed a spectacular backdrop for his assignment.

While we immensely enjoyed the lush green fields through which we ran, they are enjoyed even more by the thousands of cows who help make this the most intensive dairy producing area of Australia.

It was appropriate then that we would meet with the Mayor of Moyne Shire, Ken Gale, at the Allanford Cheese World.

The Mayor, accompanied by the Shire CEO Brett Stonestreet, Councillor Bruce Couch and his wife Lorna, greeted us warmly and made us all feel very welcome in the shire.

The Tourism and Restaurant Manager for Cheese World, Kim Kavanagh, graciously invited us all inside for a tour. The large Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Company factory across the road has been in operation since 1888, and produces some of Australia's most renowned cheddar cheeses, which our runners were delighted to sample.

Kim then kindly showed us through the adjoining local history museum, featuring many extraordinary relics and mementoes from the local farming and industry dating back to the early 1850s,

including the remnants of a unique steam-powered car from 1904, and an operational electric car from 1936!

– Prachar Stegemann (Australia)

Team C

It is eight o’clock on Saturday morning. The ocean, pearly grey and winking in the new light, boomed and frothed and sent founts of spray soaring gloriously into the crisp morning air, as though compensating for the lack of human activity, or better yet, trying to wake them up herself.

It was a contented girls’ team that left the splendid accommodations of the Eco Beach HYA Apollo Bay this morning and set out for Cape Otway. The teams had a chilly 9am rendezvous 500 metres above sea level at the Otway Fly, a 600 metre-long walkway suspended 25 metres above the forest floor of Great Otway National Park.

This steel canopy walk is one of only three in the entire world, the other two also being found in Australia. The team visited the Tahune Airwalk in Tasmania earlier this week. What makes this tree-top walk unique (and thrilling) is that the steel bridges and towers are designed to swing when rocked by over-enthusiastic visitors.

This makes an already unforgettable experience – well, totally unforgettable. After meeting the staff at the visitors’ centre and presenting them with the Harmony Run Torch,

we followed a wide dirt trail into the thick, luscious rainforest where we gloried in making as much noise as we liked.

It felt as though disturbances of any sort were absorbed into the ancient growth, and recycled as majestic stillness. Scores of slender, soaring gum trees watched on as we tripped happily along the airborne bridges (the rocking hadn’t started yet) and paused to drink in the beauty around us.

A high point (pun intended) was when we climbed Spiral Tower. Named for obvious reasons, more than one team member felt light-headed after the steep and winding ascent onto the circular platform lookout, 47 metres above the forest floor.

It was at this point the rocking began, started by team thrill-seekers and perpetuated by nearly everyone. The tower shook and swayed, we feared for our lives, and a marvellous time was had by all.

From this point on, we hardly traipsed a single bridge that wasn’t soon after shaking violently, and most of us didn’t want it any other way. The initial novelty of being violently shaken 25 metres high in mid-air soon wore off, and we had time to appreciate what was around us.

Tree, fern and moss species, some over 150 million years-old which makes them prehistoric, crowded us from every angle.

Filtered light created shafts that always landed on something interesting – dotty trees covered in lichen, trickling gullies, thriving communities of insects, shooting gums that oddly resembled powerlines and birds of many different varieties, just to name a few.

Our visit rounded off with hot drinks in the visitors’ centre, and then we were off for our next adventure.

The team met again an hour later, but this time it was informally. The Great Ocean Road took us past the Twelve Apostles,

twelve towering formations of rock separated from the original cliff face by the force of the ocean millions of years ago.

They are huge, craggy and act as guardians or guides for travellers, still standing strong against merciless pounding of the waves.

The sea was a gorgeous blue, the sun shone brightly and we felt privileged to see one of the great natural spectacles on earth.

– Julie Anderson (Australia)

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Team Members:
Prabhakar Street (Canada), Edi Serban (Romania), Standa Zubaty (Czech Republic), Sandro Zincarini (Italy), Runar Gigja (Iceland), Marichi Clarke (Australia), Misha Kulagin (Russia), Dima Lehonkov (Ukraine), Colm Magee (Ireland), Peter Elliot (Australia), Pushpendra Uppal (Australia), Prachar Stegemann (Australia), Sushmitam Rouse (Australia), Uddyogini Hall (Australia), Julie Anderson (Australia), Friederike Makowka (Switzerland), Angela Muhs (Germany), Elke Lindner (Germany), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine)

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