Our boys team 'A' started in Albany – our sublime overnight resting place – and what a gorgeous day greeted us this morning! Needing to fit in quite a bit of running along with a few school visits and other significant ceremonies today, we launched our 'Mongolian missile', Bayarkhuu, on the road to get our kms clicking over, and rushed to Yakamia Primary School for our first presentation of the day at 9 am ...
... where the media were already awaiting us, so we paused for a photo shoot before even entering the school.
Our presenter for the morning, Prachar, explained to us all that peace and happiness lie within ourselves and that it is up to us to either stay peaceful and react in a good way or get angry and lose our peace ...
... and then, while passing the Torch around amongst everyone on the oval outside, we all tried to feel the peace within...
... holding the torch, we became part of the peace-aspiring world-family ...
... and then we all ran and showed how happy we are!
As we were about to drive off, Ken from The Great Southern Weekender newspaper stopped by, having expected us to arrive about now. He not only got to take our photo, he got to hold the torch as well!
... and then we were off to chase after Bayarkhuu, who by now had been running for about an hour. Right away we discovered that the road we had sent him along was leading in the wrong direction – and he doesn't speak English – and doesn't have a phone on him – and there are several alternative roads he could have taken in the meantime ... so we sent off another runner from the starting point, Drishalu from Austria – who speaks good English, knows where he is going and takes a phone with him – and follow our prayers and intuition in search of our Mongolian brother ... We searched everywhere ...
... Moooo... have you seen Bayarkhuu? ...
... have you seen Bayarkhuu? ...
There he is!!
He has found his way onto an alternative route to Denmark, and has clocked 20 km by the time we find him nearly 2 hours after setting off. His torch is still burning, and of course he is still smiling, and moving along at his same brisk clip ... if we had not caught him, he might just have kept running right across the whole country ...
... then we had to track down Drishalu, who by now had run 12 km of his own, along a parallel road ...
... happily back together, our team continues towards Denmark ...
Further ahead already, our girls team were making headway to Denmark and enjoying the green pastures, taller trees and streaming sunshine, a vastly different landscape from what we have been through over the last couple of weeks ...
... a bit more like home, at least for the two New Zealanders on the team!
We had a very easy day of running today, so when we got to Denmark we even had time to stop off at Ravens, a very nice local cafe, before going on.
We were immediately charmed by this quaint town ...
... and its friendly residents – everyone who saw us wanted to hold the torch!
We were particularly happy to meet Brian and his adorable dog Stella. Brian recently gave up smoking and has taken up running to help him get through this challenging withdrawal phase. He also recently started meditating and is deeply encouraged by the positive results he is experiencing from the combination of meditation and running. We were very inspired by Brian's enthusiasm!
Our next stop was Denmark Primary School. A lot of children from surrounding areas travel to Denmark to go to school here, and quite a few of them had already seen our runners from different teams out on the road this morning! (perhaps they had even seen Bayarkhuu?) ...
The kids were a very enthusiastic bunch ...
They had more questions than we could ever answer, and were also very knowledgeable with their geography. Sometimes Mongolia is a bit of a hard country to guess, but they got it right away!
Oyungeral was right at home watching the Peace Run DVD with the kids.
Many of our new friends were keen to join our team and run with us right away ... the only thing holding them back was getting permission from their parents to take time off school to run around Australia ...
There is always a special quality amongst the children in small town schools ...
... a sweet, simple family feeling that in many ways embodies the message of the Run, and consequently gives us a lot of joy ...
Boys team 'B' had started running from here – Denmark – earlier this morning, and covered all the distance to our next destination, "The Valley of the Giants" ...
The trees were certainly getting taller – or were our runners just getting shorter?
Our whole team were delighted to be invited as guests of The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk today ...
This is a beautiful place where people have an opportunity to not just see the grandeur of the mighty Tingle Gum ...
... but more importantly to feel and immerse themselves in the pristine silence and peace of nature.
Our feeling was the Tree Top Walk provides an important service to all those who visit because it provides an opportunity to commune with nature and become aware of the beauty, peace and silence which we all have inside ourselves.
We were greeted by an impressive delegation of officials, including Peter Keppel, Manager of the Warren Region (Southern Forests) for the Western Australian State Department of Environment and Conservation (the tallest one in the middle of this group), and representatives of the local shires of Denmark and Manjimup ...
... who took great pride in giving us our own personal tour of this amazing facility ...
... which allows the visitor to view the forest from the perspective of the trees themselves ...
... 40 metres above ground level.
Our coordinator for southern Western Australia, Grahak Cunningham, who had been our liaison person with the Tree Top Walk for the occasion ...
... and international Executive Director of the Peace Run, Salil Wilson who has been on our team since Melbourne ...
We thoroughly enjoyed walking, absorbing and even jogging along this amazing structure, a remarkable engineering feat in itself ...
These trees truly are giants ...
This is a re-creation of a favourite tree into which folk used to drive their cars just for the photograph – Steve couldn't resist ...
We were then served a veritable feast for lunch, prepared for us by the staff of the facility. We were all too busy eating to take any photos of the actual lunch – here are some of the 'satisfied customers' after having their fill ...
The formal reception moved inside, where we were greeted first by Peter Keppel of the WA Department of Environment and Conservation, after which Salil Wilson spoke of the history and ideals of the Peace Run ...
... sporting our new "Valley of the Giants" caps, we sing the Peace Run song ...
Letters from the ACT Chief Minsiter, Katy Gallagher were delivered to Councillor Ian Osbourne (represting Shire President Ross Thornton) of Denmark Shire, and Councillor David Tapley, representing the Walpole Ward of Manjimup Shire ...
The Peace Run Torch-Bearer Award was presented to The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk, and accepted by the Manager, Julie Ross on behalf of the staff.
Manager Julie Ross with her staff Terri Ebbert (of Bow Bridge) and Jacki Bliss (of Peaceful Bay), who had prepared our sumptuous and delicious lunch.
Sadly we had to depart promptly from The Valley of the Giants and drive ahead for another most significant meeting in Walpole – we would return later in the day to run this section ...
The children from Walpole Primary School were already waiting in the park, where in 2008 a Peace Tree had been dedicated on the occasion of the visit of our World Harmony Run ...
... and this is what they were waiting for – the arrival of the Peace Torch!
Today was to be a very special day for us all, as Walpole would receive a new plaque dedicating this beautiful little town as a "Sri Chinmoy Peace Town", thus joining it with over 1000 places worldwide that have been dedicated to peace as part of the "Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms" program – places as diverse as the Great Barrier Reef, Niagara Falls, Sydney Opera House, Mt Fuji, the cities of Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, and over 100 nations of the world.
The school choir performed several songs for us, under the expert direction of their conductor.
We were wrapped in their performances, and could have listened to these kids all afternoon ...
... but instead, we first sang for them our Peace Run song and a few other peace songs by Sri Chinmoy ...
... and then, all together, we sang Sri Chinmoy's World Harmony Run song ...
... with actions!
Councillor David Tapley, representing the Shire of Manjimup (Walpole Ward), officially welcomed us to the town of Walpole ...
... which he officially proclaimed today as a member of the "Sri Chinmoy Peace-Blossoms" family ...
... the beautiful new plaque was unveiled ...
Cr David Tapley was presented with the Peace Run Torch-Bearer Award ...
... in recognition of the selfless service he has offered the Walpole community for over 18 years as a member of the Shire Council. He had welcomed our runners back in 2008 when we passed through; and worked tirelessly to make today a great and memorable day for all involved, even installing the new Peace-Blossom plaque himself.
A second Torch-Bearer Award was presented to Dianne Pickersgill, who has volunteered her time to help orphaned children in Nepal. Dianne has visited Nepal frequently and fundraises here in Walpole by selling hand crafted Nepalese goods (and many other beautiful items) in her gift store, "Arabia Blue". Proceeds are then returned to the Nepalese people.
Dianne said she was truly humbled receiving the award and promptly offered gifts to all the runners who visited her store after the ceremony.
All the chilren then had their chance to hold the Peace Torch ...
... and to run with Adrien, our Peace Run team representative ...
The new plaque is mounted on a beautiful stand made from local Jarrah, one of the world's finest hardwoods ...
Christine, the Principal of the school with their fantastic music teacher ...
Proud school parents with Kate, who created several of the cakes which were laid out for us as part of ...
... a magnificent afternoon tea which followed the ceremony.
Brad Crouch from the Walpole-Nornalup Visitor Centre who put on some of the food ...
90 year old Walpole resident Bob Elms, a teacher for 43 years at Walpole Primary starting around 1946 – was on hand to hold the Torch with Cr Tapley.
Following afternoon tea, Cr Dave Tapley took some of us on a relaxing 2 km walk through the beautiful forests of Walpole ...
... along the walk is a place where you can lean back on purpose-cut slabs of native wood and enjoy the ambience of the forest ...
While the ceremony was winding up in Walpole, Boys Team 'A' drove back to the Valley of the Giants to resume our running – the final 17 km into town ...
... with a peaceful run surrounded by the tall, tall trees of the forest.
... back into Walpole ...
... and finished running for the day at the newly installed Peace-Blossom plaque.
Boys team 'B' are staying tonight at the Walpole Lodge in town, where we are being looked after by Julie and Steele, and baby Luke ...
Lucian Popescu and our runner Ion cannot believe they are speaking Romanian in the small town of Walpole! Lucian – who is also staying at Walpole Lodge – was born in Romania and is a physics and maths teacher in Switzerland.
Our girls team is staying the night at Jenny's Lake Farm-stay. It is the most beautiful setting, not surprisingly overlooking a private lake! We are extremely grateful to Jenny and Jerry for taking such good care of us and providing luxurious and at the same time homely accomodation for our team.
We are also grateful to their grand daughter Yasmin and her husband Corey, who help to run the farm stay, and were happy to meet their children Theo (3 years old), and Chloe (9 months old).
What a wonderful ending to another great day, we are making so many new friends along the way!!
Our boys team 'A' are meanwhile passing the night in the phenomenal Walpole Wilderness Resort, where Rhonda has been most kind to us ...
... we are in heaven here, with spacious luxurious rooms, full kitchen, an open wood fireplace, jacuzi and kangaroos abounding on the lawns!
Thank you thank you thank you!!
