Day 2: 24 November 2018
Two very eager walkers returned to Nook for a familiar section, across the Badgers into Sheffield. The weather was perfect and our hearts were full of joy.
Through scrubby bush, alongside farms, looking south to Mount Roland and our ongoing route, we walked in silence for a stretch, Tim reflecting on growing up in the beautiful town of Sheffield before returning as a family to live and work here.
From the Badgers, we walked into Sheffield along High Street, past farms and Southland before meeting Barbie at Fudge’n’Good Coffee where I snapped this memorable photo of Tim.
We had pre-planned the next stage for the following day, but with time and energy on our side we decided to keep going. Our good friend and physical trainer Vera joined us, making sure that we kept smiling and stretching on the way.
Our mood shifted as we approached the Claude Road cemetry, where both Vera’s baby son Alexander and Tim’s brother John are buried.
We kept up a good pace as we climbed the lower slopes of Mount Roland to The Hut, where we hoped to surprise the French family by arriving at a special celebration of Bruce French’s lifetime work of documenting 30,000 food plants from around the world. However, the surprise was rather more than any of us anticipated. As Tim shook Bruce’s hand and congratulated him, he suddenly collapsed. For the next twenty minutes, our friends then the local ambulance crew performed CPR. A single defibrillation shocked Tim’s heart back into rhythm, and Tim was loaded onto an ambulance. A very different pilgrimage had begun.