Team A

 

Our day started with an 8 am radio interview at 6DRB in Derby. The radio station has very kindly been playing regular community announcements about the World Harmony Run, and as a result many travellers on the highway who we meet are well aware of our journey and regularly stop to offer our runners water or just have a chat.

Serena, who hosts the breakfast program at 6DRB, was all enthusiasm for the Run and spent almost 30 minutes of air time with us.

On the grounds of the radio station there had previously been a church, however all that now remains is this statue now clothed in vines.

After leaving the radio station we made our way to the Derby Recreation Centre from where we started the 2 km run into town with some locals joining in.

Our destination was the local swimming pool. No sooner had we arrived, and our girls' team were leaping into the pool.

We all assembled on the lawn for the main ceremony chaired by Elsia Archer, the Shire President of Derby / West Kimberley, who formally welcomed the World Harmony Run to town.

Elsia also presented World Harmony Run Torch-Bearer Awards to 3 local identities who are real pillars of the community. These included Bob McCartney, Rose Marks and Gwen White (more details to be published in the Torch-Bearer Award gallery on this site shortly). The ceremony concluded with a short rendition of the World-Harmony-Run Song followed by morning tea.

With the sun now rising high into the sky, we commenced our running toward Fitzroy Crossing.

A special hello to Guy and Helen from England who are circling Australia together after India and Nepal.

Along the way we passed by many Boab trees that dot the landscape including some really enormous ones that we could climb into. One had even been used as a prison!

One even passed by on the back of a huge truck, on its way from Turkey Creek to be relocated in Kings Park in Perth. We had to move right off the road to let this convoy through. Little wonder, as the tree itself was 18 metres high, 14 metres wide and weighed in at 36 tonnes. Quite a fanfare, but it was the first long distance road trip this Boab had taken in past 750 years!

– Veeraja Uppal (Australia)

Team B

Kate is another Kiwi all the way from Invercargil, a city with a very colourful mayor Tim Shadbolt and a fantastic netball team. Kate is enjoying the quieter pace of life in Derby with a fantastic job working for the pool and recreation centre.

Today we were running through the heat of the day on a more desolate road, so we opted to run shorter distances, 2 km at a time, to stay in contact with the van and receive drinks more often. This meant we were running every 30 minutes so it was definitely more dynamic. On the road it was a faster pace while inside the van it was more like ‘musical chairs’ every 10 minutes.

Much of the technical support for the girls' van on this leg of the run has come from Nishima's husband, John Marshall, in the form of hours of very patient training, teaching her how to use camera, video camera and computer. It is a special birthday for him on 16th July. Happy Birthday John from the Australia Harmony Run Team!

– Nishima Knowsley (New Zealand)

Team C

The section of the Great Northern Highway east of Derby is known as The Savannah Way. We could easily have been in Africa, and half expected to encounter elephants, rhinos or giraffes at any moment. Even the Boab tree reminds one of the great African savannah where, along with Madagascar, its cousins. the baobab trees, reside.

This monsoonal area of Australia has two seasons: The Wet and The Dry. We are now at the height of The Dry: dry landscape, dry dust, dry wind, dry sky, dry air and very, very dry runners...

The sky is again cloudless, but not the same intense blue we experienced crossing the Nullarbor Plain of southern Australia. It seems the more direct heat and sunlight here reflect back into the sky, leaching the darker hues from the blue.

Nature never ceases to amaze with her intelligence. The huge termite mounds are carefully constructed for precise internal climate control: keeping the hard-working termites cooler during the stifling hot days, and warmer at night. Some miscellaneous trivia about these little fellows: the king and queen termites can live to be 60 years-old, while the expendable workers live much shorter lives; the termites don't get out and about much – living almost entirely in the dark of their huge mounds, they are almost completely blind.

Our destination for today was the Fitzroy Crossing Sport & Recreation Centre, known as Garnduwa Amboorny Wirnan – terms from the 3 languages of the region which each mean "Big mob getting together." The facilitator of the Centre for Fitzroy and the surrounding communities, Mike Moyle and his assistant Kerrissa O'Meara, made us most welcome and introduced us to several of the girls who come regularly to enjoy the sporting facilities.

Garnduwa is providing tremendous resources, coaching and support for young people, focusing particularly on Australian Rules football, basketball and soccer, and is an important focal point for the dynamic Central Kimberley Football League.

In recognition of his outstanding services, particularly to the young people of the community, we were delighted to present the World Harmony Run Torch-Bearer Award to Mike Moyle.

In addition to arranging today's reception and saturating the local radio (everyone here knows all about who we are and why we are here!), Mike has also made the facilities of the Sport & Recreation Centre available for our accommodation tonight, for which we are most grateful. We were also thrilled to play frisbee under lights on the adjacent oval while the local footy team was practising.

Our present route is following the southern border of the Kimberley, a region famous for its impressive gorges and rugged mountain ranges. Much of the area is inaccessible during the wet season, as dry creek beds swell to vast rivers, immersing large areas of the road. Most of the attractions of the area are accessible only by four wheel drive vehicles even in the dry months, ruling out our fleet of touring vans.

Nevertheless we were able this afternoon to visit Geikie Gorge, just 18 km out of town along a good bitumen road. The origins of the gorge date back 350 million years when a Devonian coral reef was created while this area was under the sea. In time, the sea retreated, the Kimberley was uplifted and the coral compacted to limestone, in which can still be found fossils from the Devonian sea life. From ancient coral reef to modern monsoonal landscape, the torrent of the wet-season Fitzroy River has hewn from the limestone a gorge of immense force, endless fascination and arresting beauty.

Small fresh-water crocodiles are common. Though we were told they would not find us in the least bit interesting, we refrained from swimming anyway.

In the gorge's upper reaches, silence and birdsong amplify each other in mutual reverence. Many of the great cathedrals and temples of medieval times took centuries to construct. Here Nature has laboured over 350 million years fashioning a grand and intricate temple to express, savour and wonder at her own beginningless and endless divine profusion-perfection.

– Prachar Stegemann (Australia)

If you would like to place a link or a write a story about the World Harmony Run on your website, click here to Link to Us. We'll be happy to place a reciprocal link and list you on our Friends Online page.

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Team Members:
Nigel Webber (Australia), Prabhakar Street (Canada), Elke Lindner (Germany), Dima Lehonkov (Ukraine), Nataliya Lehonkova (Ukraine), Prachar Stegemann Australia), Misha Kulagin (Russia), Runar Gigja (Iceland), Prabuddha Nicol (Australia), Nishima Knowsley (New Zealand), Iva Nemcova (Czech Republic), Miro Pospisek (Czech Republic), Sandro Zincarini (Italy), Angela Muhs (Germany), Edi Serban (Romania), Standa Zubaty (Czech Republic), Veeraja Uppal (Australia)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!

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