Halloween,  was a Spook-tacular day and no need for me to dress up, I suppose I always look scary! Nice and warm but with a pleasant breeze and the flies have started to become a pest. For some reason that day I walked along a parallel secondary road which cost only an extra two kilometres. It led to a village called Ben Lomond and my decision proved to be a good one for there were only a few cars during the two hours that I walked along it. 

Once in the pretty village a gardener suggested that I pitch my tent under a shelter at a disused tennis court beside a graveyard. Ah! Yes, Halloween beside a graveyard  However, the real scare there was a man, a white supremacist, a holocaust denier who was camping in a nearby field. Like many other so-called grey nomads I met he has been travelling around the country for over twenty years and living out of his motor home. He was retired and I was informed that his government pension of 800 dollars a fortnight was more money than he could spend. Before I left the following morning he mentioned that his unsavoury views would have him imprisoned in some European countries.

Next day, I only walked 15 kilometres and stopped at the Red Lion bar for lunch. The owner, a woman called Anne told me that it was for sale for 530,000 dollars.  A lot of money I know but when you consider that the sale included a house which would cost about half the total sale price, a small RV park, and a 20 seater shuttle bus and a three room mini hotel which usually has its 90 dollar a night rooms filled.

I was planning to pitch my tent on a patch of grass  when a man called Alan invited me to stay the night  with him and his wife Nancy at their  home across the road. At their dinner table I heard how three local community activists had reason to wonder when all three of them had a dog poisoned. Only one of them survived. 

A bisiness-like 24 kilometres took me to the outskirts of Glen Innes where I did an interview for a local newspaper. It seemed that word of my cancer awareness world walk had spread and I had an invite to meet some people at a food bank which was staffed by volunteers from a local church.

 Perfectly good food which had damaged packaging or short dated was being distributed to anyone in need.  

The supervisor, a kind-hearted woman called Jenny who even gave me an invitation to pitch my tent in her garden at the far end of town. 

Upon arriving at the family home I was soon upgraded to the sofa and then to a bedroom. Such was the hospitality that I ended up spending three fun-filled rest days there for there was a lot to do. First, we went to the so-called Standing Stones which were a replica and built as a tribute to the towns Celtic heritage. Each year the town hosts a popular Celtic festival. I preferred to call the stones the Holy Stones as in the episode of the hit comedy: Fr. Ted,  about the life of three Irish priests. Its also a hit show here in Australia. That night we watched the Holy Stones episode on YouTube, along with four other episodes for I can never get enough of  this hillarity  

Eventually, it was time for me to walk on and I hadn't gotten far when a man called Malcolm who had read about me stopped to offer me a bed for the night in his home. He lived near Dundee with his wife Dayle, 22 kilometres away. Quick as a flash I asked him to transport Karma, and so we loaded my trusty cart onto his pickup, so as I could walk without the drudgery of pushing it. At his farmhouse we had an interesting chat about farmlife on his 4,000 acre, 4,000 sheep/lamb and 200 cow farm.

Their son Ian is conveniently married to a vet. I remembered the story of how a previous host, also  a farmer had regular 200 dollar vet fees for animal visitations. I got a laugh when I asked how their son and daughter-in-law met. "He used to sell her firewood, so much so that in the end he just said... Listen Kate, you don't need anymore firewood, you need a boyfriend!"

Next day, I was delighted when Malcolm kindly transported Karma the 21 kms to Deepwater as Jenny had managed to get her friends Ronnie and Brenda to bed me! 

I arrived just before the Melbourne cup horse race began. This is an Australian institution which is talked about and celebrated by a huge amount of Aussies. Upon arriving at my latest hosts house I asked Ronnie if he was watching it but alas he said that he didn't have the premium television channel which was showing it live. Suddenly an uncharacteristically afternoon tiredness came across me so I took a two hour nap. When I returned to the living room Ronnie was talking about the Irish trained winner and what a great race it was. 

Puzzled, I asked him how he saw it and we both laughed when he said he saw it on a non premium channel which was able to show the re run of the race five minutes after the finish. Ah! Had I of known he meant that he couldn't watch it live but a few minutes later, as if a few minutes made much difference in my world! Later we watched the rerun online.