The team enjoyed a very peaceful start together at our 'top of the world' accommodations at the Pittwater YHA ...
... before we said our farewells to our hosts Michael and Sarah, we enjoyed another beautiful Australian sunrise, this time in the Kuringai National Park.
The peaceful morning also brought a visit from two local wallabies who grazed silently next to the hostel.
Since the YHA is only accessible by water taxi, we would need to catch it again this morning to commence our day of Peace Run activities ...
... when it came time to leave, we made a silent procession down to the small wharf ...
... to catch the water taxi back to 'civilization'.
We rode the 7:45am taxi ...
... and were ushered off by a local resident, a very old yellow dog. We got a friendly tail wag as we boarded for departure.
The ‘taxi’ seemed more like a school bus as we made several stops to gather young people ...
Finally, we reached our destination and made the long climb back up the hill to retrieve our Peace Run vans. Since we were in a rush to catch the 5:30pm ferry the night before, we didn’t bring any breakfast. Everyone fell upon the campervan when we got there and stocked up on goodies before our first school visit ...
... to Brookvale Public School.
Brookvale Public School's students gave us an enthusiastic welcome ...
... the kids were especially excited to sing a song for us ...
... and to learn the World Harmony Run song.
Their school song included amazing lyrics about making good choices and doing the right thing.
Emily received the Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of the school ...
... she said, “On behalf of Brookvale Public School, I would like to thank you for coming to our school and teaching us your song and motto”.
Everyone was very conscious of making a wish for peace when they held the Torch.
Then we ran around the route run by the students each day ...
... as it turns out, they are all budding runners!
Since we had spent extra time at Brookvale ...
... we arrived a little late to Manly Village Public School ...
... and a sea of enthusiastic young faces.
There were about 600 students present ...
... many students had made Peace torches and works of art ...
... while others had written beautiful poems about peace which they shared with us.
When the school representative received the Certificate of Appreciation, he said:
“On behalf of Manly Village Public School, we want to thank you for coming here for the first time. It’s been great having you here. We won’t forget it.”
While passing the Peace Torch around the students, four young boys came up to me and said, “Peace be with you” while placing their hand on the Peace Run sticker they had received after holding the Torch.
Thank you so much to Manly Village for your enthusiasm and excitement ...
... and thank you to Principal Leonie Black and the teachers of Manly Village for morning tea and muffins. It was greatly appreciated!
The team was able to take a short break and have some lunch at Manly Beach. It was a fitting break to a great day.
Next stop was the Saint Rose Catholic Primary School ...
... where Level 4 students sang and performed the Peace Run song for us. What a great pleasure and joy for us to be treated to the song in this way!
The students dived sincerely into the exercise of feeling peace within their hearts ...
... outside, we had great fun with all the kids with their hand-made torches and with the real thing ...
Our fourth and final school of the day ...
... was the Dee Why Public School ...
... where many of the students had prepared their own artwork on the theme of peace.
The students sang along with us when we sang the Peace Run song and were enthusiastic about learning the World Harmony Run song.
Adrian Lee and Pawan Mohan accepted the Certificate of Appreciation on behalf of Dee Why Public School. Pawan thanked us for coming to visit their school and Adrian wished us good luck on the rest of our journey.
Then we all gathered outside ...
... where everyone had the chance to hold the Peace Torch and offer their wishes for peace.
We were really happy to be joined as our teammate by Samia from Brazil. We were also happy to have our friends Stefano, Grahak and Abhinandan join the team today ...
Principal Robert Coles was present and said that he had seen us at Brookvale Public School earlier that day when he was there for a staff meeting. He thanked us for coming to his school.
Meanwhile, our second boys team were greeted at Burraneer Bay School by a friendly group of about 300 students ...
... they were having a sports day but many children took the opportunity to hold the Peace Torch.
The school visits were done for the day but there were still a few kms to complete ...
... which we ran together ...
... to the Manly ferry ...
Our team then jumped onto the 5:30pm ferry from Manly Beach into Sydney's Circular Quay, torch in hand. It was a beautiful trip with lots of friendly people ...
Upon arrival at Circular Quay, we made quite a few new friends ...
... Akhmed and Mohammed from Pakistan were very happy to hear about the Peace Run and appreciated the global nature of our efforts.
Rupasi was also excited to meet two Americans from Atlanta, Georgia who were vacationing in Australia.
We disembarked and began our final few kms for the day. This short distance to the Sydney Opera House and then on to Hyde Park would prove be some of the most joyful and fun that I have had so far. We trotted down to the Opera House torch in hand and met many new friends ...
I made a new friend in Badoor from Saudi Arabia who was happy to learn about the Peace Run.
We continued our journey to Hyde Park and were greeted by Sean Morrison. He said he had just called his wife to say that he thought he had seen those people again carrying the torch which they recently saw in Darwin. He couldn’t believe it was us. We were happy to see him and invited him to join us next time.
Once we arrived at St. James station, we extinguished the Torch and made our way through the subway to our accommodations for the night, the Downtown Sydney YHA ...
It was an adventure traveling through the subway with Steve as our competent guide ...
... everyone present put their best foot forward.
We arrived at Sydney Central YHA happy and excited. Another great day on the Peace Run!
