Dan Watson comes to the end of his Perth to Sydney Walk
As Dan finished his whopping 5000KM walk from Perth to Sydney, media around Australia wanted to know just why he was doing what he did …
- Dan Watson's mother reached out to him after a decade of no contact
- The 34-year-old resolved to do the mega-walk to show her he still cared
- He lost 20 kg throughout the journey and nearly gave up hope
- Watson suffers depression and is fundraising for Cancer Council & SANE
- Will complete journey Sunday when he arrives at Bondi beach in Sydney
It was a call that changed his life.
After a decade without speaking to her, Dan Watson was contacted by his mother Lynn from Ireland last year after she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer.
The 34 year old Sydney man resolved to turn over a new leaf after hearing the shocking news and decided to hike a staggering 5,000 kilometres across Australia for charity.
‘I was in a bad place at the time. I realised the only way I was going to make it through the other end of the tunnel was to do something selfless. I had to put others first,’ Dan told Daily Mail Australia.
In a bid to repair his relationship with his mother, Dan embarked on the inspiring mega-walk from Fremantle to Sydney to raise money for the Cancer Council NSW and national mental health charity SANE.
‘My mother phoned last year from Ireland to say she needed me. She was going through her third round of chemotherapy. I knew it was very serious,’ he said.
The Sydney advertising worker said he had blamed his parents for the anxiety and depression that has plagued him throughout his life, but the walk offered him a means of mending his familial fences.
‘The thought of losing out on the chance to settle our differences made me sick to my bones. I needed to show her I still cared.’
Before starting the journey, Dan had a custom built trolley made to cart necessities like clothing and food.
'My friends named it Blue Steele. That way it had a human quality and I was more likely to look after it.'
He said the biggest hurdle of the walk, which is set to come to a close this weekend when he arrives at Bondi Beach, was the Nullarbor Desert - a vast and barren swathe of land in southern Australia.
‘It's extremely arid and hot. Towards the end of the desert I began to lose my nerve. I was famished, as there were virtually no supermarkets for food.’
‘I started to get this foreboding feeling of regret, that it was all a waste. I just about lost my marbles.
'But I had to tell myself it was only temporary, that my suffering was trivial compared to what my mum was going through.’
While he was lean going into the journey, Dan said he lost over 20kgs.
‘I began the journey at about 77kg. By the end of the Nullabar I was about 55kg. I looked like a malnourished marathon runner,’ he said.
He expects to reach his goal of raising $20,000 when he completes the mammoth hike this Sunday at Bondi Beach.
You can donate to Dan Watson's cause through his crowd-funding page.
ABC Online Story: Man treks from Perth to Sydney to raise money for cancer and mental health
Three years ago, when Dan Watson's mother was diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer, the pair had not spoken for 10 years.
Mr Watson had been struggling to cope with mental issues for decades and had lost his zest for life.
It was then he decided to attempt a 5,000-kilometre trek from Fremantle to Bondi, spreading hope and raising money for others affected by cancer and mental health issues.
Part of Mr Watson's desire to complete the arduous journey was to clear his head and reclaim his self-esteem by "doing something worthwhile".
Today that sense of accomplishment was achieved when he finished the last leg of his cross-country journey in Bondi. The trek started in Fremantle last October.
The journey took Mr Watson through extreme conditions in different regions and terrains, with some of his favourite destinations including Cape Le Grand national park in Esperance, Western Australia, the Adelaide Hills and Jervis Bay on the New South Wales coast.
Mr Watson went through eight pair of runners and changed the tyres on his custom-made trolley 11 times (every 100 kilometres for the first 1,000 kilometres) all while dodging trucks in his high-visibility vests.
He had suffered from mental health issues since childhood but they had reached a peak by the time he was in his 30s.
"I let it mutate into something quite grotesque," he said.
"I couldn't see any meaning in my life, I didn't see the point of why I existed."
Throughout this struggle, his mother was diagnosed with cancer and asked to see him again after 10 years without contact.
Mr Watson said the reason for the breakdown in their relationship was mainly due to selfishness on his part.
"When I went to see her that made me realise what my existence is about," he said.
He said he suddenly realised his power to ease someone else's suffering.
"I can't go and nurse her better, I'm not that kind of bloke so I'm helping indirectly," he said.
Mr Watson has been raising money for Cancer Council and SANE Australia on his journey and as of Friday morning had raised $28,000 for both charities.
Epic journey brings people together
Mr Watson said the central message he wanted to spread through his epic charity trek was that everyone had the power to lighten someone's load and by doing so could help themselves.
"My mum is doing well with the chemo and has a good quality of life and now I am in a better place and have a better quality of life," he said.
During the trek he connected with many people on the road who were also suffering with mental health issues, family trauma or even physical disabilities.
He said the trek's ability to bring people together had solidified what he was doing.
"There's solidarity in that suffering, there's connection there," Mr Watson said.
"They are giving some of themselves to me just by talking about it, and what I can do for them, I hope, is give them a little bit of hope by finishing this walk because it's about them at the end of the day."
Apart from the thousands of flies across the unforgiving Nullarbor Plain and eating baked beans and beef jerky for weeks, he said his biggest challenge was overcoming his own ego.
"Even those times when I was in pain, physically exhausted and losing the will to put one foot in front of another, the only way I got through that was realising it's not about me, realising who I am doing this for, and that was the motivation to keep me moving," he said.
He said the biggest lesson he had learnt on his journey was simply about having the self-control to perceive things in a different light.
"People who are terminally ill, those who have lost family members, kids in wheelchairs, the power that people have to give when they themselves are suffering, in the face of their own mortality, should make everyone feel really grateful," he said.
"The only way you can start living a good life, is just by being grateful for what you've got."
Watson to turn attention to study
Mr Watson is planning similar projects for the foreseeable future, but first he wants to complete his MBA at the University of Sydney.
He said he was relieved to finish the trek but was physically exhausted, underweight and short on money.
"I'm ready to just get on with life now and more than anything else, I don't want to be walking ever again," he said.
Mr Watson is not looking for personal glory from the epic journey.
"It's not really about having a party or anything at the end, that's not the purpose of the walk," he said.
"But I won't say no to a beer, I'm sure my friends will shout me a few."
IT’S not every day that you hear of someone willing to literally walk around Australia.
And for good reason: depending on how one travels, this great land Down Under spans about 20,000 kilometres.
Dan Watson, however, considered it — but decided a walk from Perth to his hometown of Sydney was probably enough.
And doing it to raise money for SANE and Cancer Council NSW was as good enough reason as any.
“I wanted to walk all the way around Australia, but I’m doing my postgrad certificate, and didn’t want to postpone it another year,” he told News Corp Australia.
“So I decided I could do the walk from Perth to Sydney between semesters.
“Today (Thursday) is actually the first day, but it’s all fitted in nicely into the most amount of time and space that I could have possibly given myself.”
Now only two days from the end of his epic journey — which began on a pier in Fremantle on October 20 — Watson is so close to the finish line, he can feel the water lapping at his feet as he nears Bondi Beach.
But what in the world could inspire such a feat?
“On the one hand, I was pretty depressed and had been on and off for most of my life,” Watson said.
“On the other side there was my mum, and she was suffering from lung cancer, which kind of put my problems into perspective and just made me realise I wasn’t truly suffering — someone I truly care about is suffering.”
So instead of holding a bedpan — “I can’t do that” — Watson decided to do something big. He quit his job, took out his savings along with two credit cards, and, armed with a trolley full of essentials, set off on the 5,000 kilometre track from Perth to Sydney.
And what does a four and a half month journey during an unrelenting Aussie summer look like?
“Tough,” Watson said.
“My goal at the start of each day is to wake up, boil coffee on my camping stove, have my muesli and try to be on the road when the sun starts getting up — I’ll pull out before 9am and finish around 6.30 to 7pm.”
On the whole, Watson’s journey has been safe. But somewhere towards the end of his walk in Western Australia, he was forced to defend himself when he heard four men debating about whether to rob him.
“I was pretty well off the road, but then there were these four guys in their car, and I thought I was going to get rolled.
“I could hear them discussing whether they would. But a mate of mine [had given me] a machete, and I got up with the blade in hand and they went on their way pretty quick.”
But by the time he got to Nullarbor Plain — a huge, arid and barren stretch of road in southern Australia — he had ditched the machete, along with his fear.
“By then I figured I probably looked enough of a fruitcake to be left alone,” Watson laughed.
During his 10-hour days, Watson was often alone. He said that now, he is able to distinguish between “isolation” and “loneliness”, and has learnt that despite his depression, he was a social person.
“Isolation is a gift, and the two best things for dealing with any problems are time and space.
“That said, I got lonely, I got really lonely, and it was confronting but it made me grateful for what I did have — like friends who I didn’t expect stepped up, and it made me realise the important of having people in my life”.
And a 5,000 kilometre journey wouldn’t be an adventure without meeting a few people along the way.
“Most of the people I met are on the side of the road.
“Anyone I meet needs to choose to meet me, choose to stop, say hi. You have [people] putting their own safety at risk — in itself is special, that they want to share something with me.”
Coincidences — or is it fate? — were also more commonplace than Watson thought.
After meeting the same truck driver three times — first on the Nullarbor, then twice on the south coast of NSW — Watson spent a night with the man, “having a yarn”.
Others were people like him — suffering from depression, dealing with loss, an illness or struggling with loneliness — who would donate money to his cause.
One girl — not far out of WA — came up to him in a wheelchair and gave him a handful of coins, and a man who had just lost his wife to cancer shared his pain.
“It’s pretty humbling, people’s ability to give even when they are also suffering
“Lots of people have stopped and it doesn’t take long to figure out what it is — it’s touching — it restores your faith in the human race.”
Although he hasn’t raised as much as he hoped - “$20,000 was my goal” — he’s come close with $16,000 collected so far, 70 per cent of which will go to Cancer Council, and 30 per cent to SANE.
To know more, visit his website www.inbetweendrinks.org.
To donate, see the campaign.