Cape York Weekly’s Chisa Hasegawa and Lyndon Keane catch up with David Tuckwood and Michael Collins on the PDR between Archer River and Coen last week. Photo: David Tuckwood.
By the time you read this, Weipa’s David Tuckwood and Michael Collins will have their feet firmly on the bitumen after passing the halfway mark of their 830-kilometre fundraising run to Cairns.
Speaking to Cape York Weekly after arriving at the Hann River Roadhouse on day 10 of their trek on Sunday morning, Mr Collins said their bodies were feeling the brunt of more than 400km of corrugations and bulldust holes on the Peninsula Developmental Road (PDR).
“It pretty much gets to a point where it feels like everything’s hurting in general, but whatever’s hurting most sort of just takes the place of everything else,” he said.
“So, it sort of rotates between them all – a sore knee, sore legs, fatigue; you really think about the thing that’s the most sore, and then, that’ll last for a while, but then it’ll rotate.”
Mr Tuckwood was unavailable for comment having not long before crashed for some well-deserved sleep, with all involved agreeing it was unwise to wake him for an interview.
The men knocked off the last 7km of dirt road on their run on Sunday night and Mr Collins said they were looking forward to putting the gruelling unsealed sections of the PDR behind them.
“That’s probably the thing we’re most looking forward to,” he said.
“It seems like it’ll be smooth sailing from then on; we’re slightly behind schedule – probably about 20 kilometres or half a day – and we’re sort of relying on the sealed road to make that up.”
The fundraising duo have been buoyed by the enthusiasm and generosity of motorists during the first 10 days of their run, including a Zimbabwean couple, who were broken down on the PDR near Wolverton Station and set up a camp chairs with cut-out pictures of Mr Collins and Mr Tuckwood as a show of support after reading about their fundraiser.
“Every day, probably nearly hourly, someone is stopping to give us a packet of lollies, say hello, cheer us on, or just get a photo,” Mr Collins said.
“It’s becoming more and more common as we get down the road, and it’s just great; we had the Wolverton Station crew all come out and set up an aid station with party lights and all this other stuff going on late the other night.”
“It’s hard to explain the motivation you get when someone stops and you just have a chat – it almost gives you that energy boost more than having a hit of sugar or something like that.”
The men are expecting to reach Laura by Tuesday morning.
