Team A

Light drizzling rain accompanied our journey on foot this morning as we headed out from the Shoreline Caravan Park in Port Augusta towards Whyalla. Thanks to the manager, Kylie, for the beautiful accommodation last night with a most comfortable stay here. ☺

Running in the rain was truly invigorating and made us feel refreshed and full of life.

By 11 am we arrived in Whyalla and stopped by the big One Steel factory to meet with 3 young Little Athletics children and their father who had been a Harriers runner in the past. They ran in with the Torch for about half a km to arrive outside the Whyalla Maritime Museum.

Here we were met by the Mayor Jim Pollock and also Councillor Alberto Salatino, to escort us into a lovely reception area under a perfectly-placed marquee sheltering us from the rain in a beautiful garden setting.

The Mayor expressed many lovely sentiments. He said: “We thank you so much for choosing to stop here in Whyalla. You could have easily just kept going and that would have been our loss.” We were deeply moved by the Mayor’s kind words of encouragement and were surprised and touched to receive a special mounted plaque dedicated to the World Harmony Run Team from the City of Whyalla.

We also thanked the Mayor and Council with a Certificate. When we additionally presented Director of the Maritime Museum, Paul Mazourek with a Certificate of Appreciation he insisted: “I have done nothing!” Paul proceeded to offer every member free entry into the Museum with a personally guided tour.

The greatest thing about visiting the museum displays was Paul’s amazing love and enthusiasm for Whyalla’s maritime history, which shone through as he explained many points to us in detail.

For example, the local Aborigines use to perform a 'singing to the sharks' ritual at Point Lowly peninsula, Port Bonython Jetty and Paul had his own theory about this: “Singing to the sharks from the shore virtually creates a 'reef symphony' attracting little fish followed by predators and eventually large predators like sharks and dolphins.”

We viewed some life-size moulds from sharks in the area and heard of Paul’s great interest and involvement in observing the sharks.

There was also a large model display on the wall, of every ship ever built in the Whyalla dockyards. We ended our museum visit by going outside to an enormous ship, the 'Whyalla' which was originally built here and had taken part in the second World War.

It has recently been restored and took 6 months to retrieve from the port up to the dry landing ground of the museum gardens. Divers had to work underwater to construct a big frame underneath before it could be moved!

Our visit here concluded with carrying the Torch to the top of this awesome ship. Nataliya tried on the Captain’s Cap and tried to get us sailing out of Whyalla!

Many thanks for your kind hospitality, a fantastic lunch and great organisation from the City of Whyalla and the Maritime Museum.

– Kylie Williams (Australia)

Teams B and C

We left Port Augusta and headed out into the saltbush plains along the Eyre Highway.

Our team members began to experience their first real taste of the vastness of the Australian continent as they followed the highway into Kimba, and although grey clouds threatened to drop rain on us all morning, we completed our distance in good time and high spirits.

In Kimba we were delighted to discover that we were now halfway across the Continent (sort of) and so could not resist posing for a few shots.

No sooner had we reached our destination at the Kimba Caravan Park Motel than rain again began to descend. The prospect of setting up camp with already-wet tents in the rain was a little less than appealing. But to our rescue the Kimba Caravan Park Motel provided a room for the girls' team while the Kimba Hotel very generously provided rooms for our boys. It must be noted that the whole region has been in drought for over 8 years and everyone in town is really happy to see the rain.

In the evening the team enjoyed the warm hospitality of the Kimba Lions Club

who provided a sumptuous meal for us all at the Kimba Uniting Church Hall.

The desert table (the apple crumble was to die for, as was the whole meal) ...

The food was absolutely sensational with a phenomenal array of home-cooked vegetarian culinary delights. We were all overwhelmed by this outpouring of enthusiasm, warmth and fine food enveloping us from this community.

So although our legs are tired, our tummies are full and our hearts filled to the brim with kindness. Thank you Kimba!

– Veeraja Uppal (Australia)

Team Members:
Prabhakar Street (Canada), Edi Serban (Romania ), Standa Zubaty (Czech Republic), Sandro Zincarini (Italy), Runar Gigja (Iceland), Marichi Clarke (Australia), Misha Kulagin (Russia), Colm Magee (Ireland), Dima Lehonkov (Ukraine), Veeraja Uppal (Australia), Prachar Stegemann (Australia), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine), Elke Lindner (Germany), Angela Muhs (Germany), Friederike Makowka (Switzerland), Kylie Williams (Australia)

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