ride4acure

Disbelief was the strongest feeling  in my mind yesterday morning. I found it hard to think of myself being at PeterMac in Melbourne and having got there walking my horses well over 1600 kms from Kempsey NSW.

Completing the horse trek has seen me live through some of the most challenging physical, mental and emotional times of my life. The drive to thrive with this for me came every single day when I reconnected  body, mind and spirit with my aim with ride4acure; remembering why I’m doing this, who I’m doing it for and the outcomes being achieved. It was this drive that saw me ride the streets of Melbourne yesterday to ‘bring it home for Hannah’.

Joe rode through the city streets with me on his horse Billy. The horses were mostly relaxed on the ride except when Billy heard the beautiful bells from St Andrews Cathedral peeling out, Billy wasn’t too keen on the sound.  Esther was taking care of logistics with the ute and float. We’d had parking reserved out front of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre so the horses could be loaded and kept safe after the media finished their job. Channel 9 covered the arrival and created a ripper interview of the arrival and the trek.  Associate Professor Grant McArthur (Hannah’s doctor and leading melanoma researcher) and Craig Bennet the CEO  of Peter Mac plus many friends and family. Friends travelled from Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Wauchope , Foster and Woolongong to be there to welcome me in, not to mention friends and family from across Victoria.

I started the journey home yesterday afternoon after a late lunch with family.  Joe is travelling with me and Esther will be flying home to Port today.  It will take a couple of days to get back to the Macleay arriving Wednesday.  My nephew Mitch caught a train to Kempsey last Friday and drove my ute and float down to Melbourne for me so I had it handy for my return trip. I’m driving back over the country I rode with my horses which is the same rewarding process I undertook when I’d completed my bike ride last year.  This process helps me think about the incredible people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve had and what has been achieved with the thousands of young people and their communities that have invited me to share “Mela-What?” and fundraise for the Hannah Rose Melanoma Research Fund.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 4th, 2010 at 8:56 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.