Mike Cosgrove walked 1211km in 24 days from Ceduna to Norseman to raise money for Gumboot Friday. Photos supplied
Mike Cosgrove’s big memory of walking the Nullarbor plain for mental health is of random people crying on the side of the road and giving him hugs.
Mike walked the plain from Ceduna to Norseman last month – 1211 kilomeres in 24 days, 73,238 steps per day with 45% of each 24-hour day spent walking to raise money for Gumboot Friday.
“We had a lot of support in Australia from people just pulling up and stopping,” Mike said.
“I had people crying on the side of the road and giving me hugs – all this sort of thing, because they had their own issues. I think they thought we were counsellors, me and my wife, Jackie.”
Jackie drove the support van, and when parked on the side of the highway had a sign across the windscreen stating what they were about.
“The people were paying just from seeing Jackie’s sign; people were pulling up and donating. It was pretty humbling to be honest.”
The mental health effect stayed with them. Mike said while staying with friends in Kalgoorlie the conversation opened on mental health-related issues.
“It was surprising how people opened up to us about their own issues; it was quite touching really,” he said.
“So many people you wouldn’t know that walk past you on the street who are dealing with issues.
“Because we did this under mental health, it’s a door opening for people. It’s an awareness that people used. We opened the door and they just opened up. It was amazing.”
Mike carried the names of eight people on one of his shoes; people they knew who had taken their own lives.
The Cosgroves funded the trip and 100% of the donations received have gone to Gumboot Friday. They have raised $9000 so far and the Givealittle page Walking the Nullarbor for Mental Health remains open.
It’s a club – Nullarbor walkers and cyclists. Mike is in touch with world walker Tom Fremantle who was walking the Nullarbor a couple of weeks ago.
“I think people are doing it all the time. We met eight cyclists that were doing it, all coming the other way. I think they thought the prevailing wind comes from the west, which normally happens. But not so. I had the wind to my back most of the way, which was a real help, but these people were struggling. They would normally do 160km a day, they were down to 50 to 60km just with those winds. That was crazy.”
The Cosgroves had an exit interview with Western Australia Minister of Police and Minister of Road Safety Paul Papalia.
“He was interested in knowing what we had seen, because when you are walking it’s a lot different than cycling, driving or trucking,” Mike said.
He is an advocate for cleaning up roadside rubbish and relates how he constantly came across bottles of urine on the road side.
“I’m not kidding you; this is something we don’t see here but in Australia I calculated between 500- 600,000 bottles of urine, pee bottles. These are truck drivers throwing them out.
“Jackie and I saw them doing it. I thought, what on earth is in those bottles? They pee while they are driving, which is a really dangerous issue. We took photos. In 1200km there’s not a metre that you couldn’t find rubbish, without a word of a lie.”
There were times he saw pee bottles stacked up touching each other, and they had all been thrown out at different times.
“There were 25 bottles for every 100m that I walked, and that was the average. Incredible.”
Another issue he related to the minister was the lack of roadside wildlife in Western Australia.
“It’s the poisoning. They have poisoned them,” Mike said.
“In South Australia, I saw dingoes and foxes, typical animals – cats and all sorts of stuff. Some roos in South Australia, a lot of road kill but they were there.
“There were dingoes watching me in the early mornings because I did a lot of my walking in the early mornings to keep away from traffic. It was pretty cool walking in the early mornings on the road because we had beautiful weather, beautiful sunsets and sunrises, and hearing these howling dingoes in the mornings in South Australia was just incredible.
“He [Paul Papalia] listened to me about that; I got a funny feeling he was aware of what was happening. He told me his brother was an advocate for the dingoes, because they kill the dingoes off and it’s an animal native to the country.”
About 100km into the 700km of the Western Australia section of highway, Mike said there was nothing. Absolute zero. His only animal encounter in Western Australia was with an early morning emu.
“On the very last day, I had an emu at 2.30am walking beside me. My light had futtered out on me. I couldn’t believe it,” he said.
The emu walked beside a startled Mike for 20 to 30 seconds and a few minutes after passing by, it turned and walked past in the other direction.
“I don’t know what was going on, I was just going by starlight at that stage because my light’s gone out.
“My wife laughs about it, but my heart was beating.
“That was the only animals we ever saw in Western Australia. It was just bare, there were no bones on the side of the road, nothing.”
Also missing were the blue tongue lizard skins.
“The blue tongue lizard over there loses its skins like a snake, so every year or so they change skins.
“As soon as we got about 100km into Western Australia, there was not one skin on the ground. And I was seeing skins every 100 metres. Thousands of skins in South Australia and zero in Western Australia.”
Mike enjoyed the longer straights because he didn’t have to work so hard with traffic.
“When you have got corners, your head is turning all the time. I actually got quite a sore neck, having to turn around just to check traffic. I was not wearing any music in my ears.
“I can’t do that when it comes to the importance of traffic, especially the road trains – three- and four-trailer trucks.”
Speed limits for the trucks were 110kmh in South Australia and 100kmh in Western Australia, which made a massive difference to the condition of the roads, he said.
“Just that extra 10kmh made it so much easier for me, when they slowed down to 100kmh, because the road wasn’t getting swept with the stones that I walked on.”
