I was asked at the last committee meeting if I would write an article for the next newsletter about my experiences of being involved in the Great Walk since the conception. I was at the forest gathering in 1987 at Cambray Pool near Nannup when the decision was made to walk from Denmark to Perth as a celebration of our environment and as a protest to the devastation that was happening in our forests. I was amazed at the number of caring & generous people who became involved in this walk who gave freely of their time & travelled all over the South West for meetings to organise this huge event. I was approached by Linda Walmann to coordinate the food for the last week from Nanga to Perth. I also liaised with Richard Chandler who was the route & camp site coordinator & Debra Simpson who took on media for the whole event. We became great friends and still are.

I had never cooked for more than 10 people before but being young & thought I could do anything I jumped at the opportunity to being involved. We borrowed, hired & begged equipment from whoever we spoke to & somehow got enough to be able to feed the multitudes. I had to really scrub those saucepans that we hired from Port Hire to remove all evidence that we had used them to cook over open fires for 4 weeks.

Such a momentous occasion when the walk left Denmark on the 20th March, 1988 with the blessing of Aboriginal people. We carried their message sticks to protect us on our journey & they were then buried in Kings Park after The Great Walk met with Peter Dowding & presented the Government of the day with a Tree Charter. Through word of mouth the word got out that there was a huge tribe of people walking the land on their way to Perth. The group swelled & when I met up with them at Nanga there were 250 people there. My first thought was how am I going to feed all these people. I had met Laurie Earl who was a chef & he took up the challenge of organising the menu. Meeting him there the look he gave me when he seen the numbers is one I will never forget. He soon forgot about making lentil patties & changed the menu to lentil stew & other dishes that could be made in huge pots.

I also had my 3 & 5 years old daughters with me with my mother supporting & helping me look after them. When she realised what a huge job I had ahead of me for the next week she took the first lift back to Fremantle where she had my husband Charlie help her look after the kids. I spent most of my time going to the shops buying food & there were not that many big shops in that area. The smaller shops would grin from ear to ear when I walked in & would order 20 kilos of cheese. I think we charged $5 a day for the privilege of being on the walk. Everyone loved it as songs & instruments were played & rainbow scarves painted to create a colourful group. I don't think Perth knew what hit it when we walked up St George's Terrace to Parliament House a colourful group of happy singing people walking out of the forest into the city. Most people wanted this lifestyle to continue -- some permanently with a bus & others getting together in the bush at weekends.

Forest Gatherings were organised & a magazine called Bamboroo emerged with information about living & treading on the earth gently. The Great Walk Networking became incorporated & the group started to get structure & the first walk was organised the next year walking from Mt. Lindsay to Mt. Frankland. I remember fondly so many people came that were on the first walk & I loved the Great Walk right from the start. Lumari (Shanti then), Cilla , Liz & Adele became my Great Walk friends that I loved seeing & spending time with that was so precious. I have made so many more friends on every walk that I could add so many more names to that list. I enjoy seeing people unwind from their everyday life as they connect to each other and to the environment while on our walks.

We were generously given a block of land which we called our Tribal Grounds in Chalwell Road 10 klms outside of Nannup by a man called John Thompson. He was a retired forester/conservationist who was so concerned by the clear felling of old growth forest and was so impressed by us as a group that he donated his land to us to be custodians to look after & care for it. We were then given a house by a group in Margaret River which was dismantled and erected on site by mainly 6 very willing workers -- Victor Flanganen, Cilla Sherrif, Giz Watson, June Lowe, Dave Swanston and Claire Johnston. They put in loads of work especially on weekends & they were then supported by others for working bees over the next year. We have spent such great times there over the years with many walks either starting or finishing there. Ancestors Hill was created as some of our members passed away & has plaques honouring the lives of Victor, Cilla, Brian Utley, John & Andrew Thompson, Sue Tynan and Sharlene Evans.

I have loved being involved in the Great Walk organising walks and being on the committee as I feel experiencing our environment is one of the most spiritual things you can do for your soul. Being in the bush walking the land, hearing the sound of the wind in the trees, living communally with like minded people, eating delicious vegetarian food prepared with love and sitting around the camp fire singing and swapping yarns are some of my favourite things to do.

The first 10 years seemed to slip by really quickly & before we knew it Lumari & I were starting to organise the 10th anniversary walk with a dedicated group of people. The first walk took 4 weeks to walk from Denmark to Perth with only one rest day. We decided to take 6 weeks to walk from Perth to Denmark and to have a celebration with a theme of the elements of air, water, fire and earth with appropriate colours of yellow, red , blue and green. What stands out for me on that walk was the amount of water from dams, rivers, creeks and the ocean that we could swim & cleanse our bodies nearly every day. Om to the camp site coordinators.

I feel like I would be repeating myself if I started talking about individual walks as I usually do an article for each newsletter. All I can say is how proud I am that a volunteer group such as ours is still going strong & that you & everyone of you have made The Great Walk what it is today. A thriving group that loves to experience the bush & each other. Every meeting that I have been to & I have been to a lot, being on the committee nearly every year since we started, I feel grateful for the people who fill all the positions so that we can represent our loving members to our utmost ability.

With the 20th anniversary walk happening next month I would love to see as many people as possible come on this walk & make it a wonderful celebration. Please pass the word around to past members.

Love & light to you all,

Om Shanti,

"True" consensus in my definition cannot mean that everyone 100% agrees and is 100% happy with every decision - that would be impossible. From my experience, it is more about going with the flow and bending to the group and choosing your objections carefully, about not sticking your neck out and being content not to get your own way most of the time - with the assurance that if an issue is of major concern to you, you will be heard. There are times when consensus is impossible - where an issue is equally importance to people who are of opposing opinions. In order for consensus to work (ie not fracture the group) it takes, I think, self-discipline, self-control and an extreme love and respect for the well-being of the group as a whole. The word consensus in my dictionary is defined as " 1. an opinion held by all or most 2. a general agreement."