About 1500 kilometres into a record-setting walk across the country, Canberra man Matt Napier is gritting his teeth against a fresh outbreak of blisters – but with the spectacular Great Australian Bight stretched out before him, his spirits remain as high as ever.
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“You just deal with them as best you can and keep going,” Mr Napier shrugged.
The Queanbeyan Tigers player and Wanniassa resident has taken to the shimmering bitumen of the Nullarbor Plain to raise awareness for global poverty, bouncing an Aussie rules football for the duration of his 4400 kilometre journey between Perth and Sydney, with his wife Wendy driving the support car.
“I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before, and I think it’s been a real success,” Mr Napier said.
“People have been really interested in the whole concept, and it’s helped get the word out there about extreme poverty.”
Having ridden his bicycle across the country for poverty last year, Mr Napier said it was important for affluent countries like Australia to uphold the UN Millennium Development Goals, which set out to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. This ambitious objective kept him going through the heat, the rain – and the pain.
“Just the hope that there can be change in the world, the hope for a better world for everyone,” he said.
“There’s enough wealth in Australia for us to do our fair share on the foreign aid scene, and I just want to make sure that happens, because we’re certainly not pulling our weight at the moment.”
Mrs Napier said the couple had spoken to at least 200 people since beginning the Global Poverty Walk on February 2.
“A lot of people are really surprised that extreme poverty has halved since 1990, which is the real message that we wanted to get out there – that we are actually getting somewhere,” Mrs Napier said.
“Australia’s foreign aid, along with all the other countries, is achieving things; it’s not wasted money. So now’s not the time to back down.”
The couple had received its own charitable goodwill during the journey, Mrs Napier said, particularly when it came to treating Matthew’s blisters.
“We were very lucky going through WA, we called into a few different chemists as problems were arising, and different people have donated stuff to help, so I’ve got a supply of tapes and dressings and antiseptic creams and stuff like that,” she said.
Her support role was a “constant” job, Mrs Napier said, ranging from driver to cook to moral support.
“Bandaging stinky feet just before having to cook dinner is probably the hardest part,” she said with a laugh.
“Obviously I don’t want him to do anything when he’s not walking, he just needs to sit and keep his feet up – so you’ve just constantly got to make sure you’re … anticipating what he needs next.”
Mr Napier said the Global Poverty Walk was the first instance of bouncing a football while crossing the country, but he decided not to pursue it as an official record.
“We did look at going to the Guiness Book of Records, but the cost of doing an application, we had to pay someone for the whole time to come along with [us] – a bit too much,” he said.
“But yeah, no-one’s attempted to bounce a footy across Australia, we’ll be the first to do that.”
The support he had received from the Queanbeyan Tigers had been “fantastic”, Mr Napier said, and left him feeling slightly homesick.
“We’re still a bit over three months away from getting back there, so yeah – sort of miss the place a little bit, and hanging around the footy club, so looking forward to getting back to that for sure,” he said.
To support Matt and Wendy Napier on their journey, visit www.theglobalpovertywalk.com.au
