Opinion: Bathurst track walk gets me thinking

WALKING THE TRACK: Ngahihi o te ra Bidois has returned from his annual pilgrimage to Bathurst. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

It was an obviously alcohol-induced slurred voice and was the funniest comment I had heard all night on the racetrack. "So can you remind me again, at what exact time of today did we decide that it would be a good idea to walk this race track tonight?"

Last weekend I attended the Bathurst motor race at Mt Panorama for what has become a bit of a pilgrimage and one of the highlights of my calendar year. My pilgrimage started five years ago when a bunch of Aussie mates invited me and my son there for a boys' weekend.

Anyway, a couple of the guys and I decided to join many others and walk the Bathurst racetrack on Saturday night, the night before the great race. The track is 6.213km long and takes around two hours to walk - including pit stops. The first sector of the track is a particularly difficult walk as it is a series of uphill corners after a long uphill straight and it was on this sector that I started hearing the funny comments.

Comments such as kids, who should have been tucked into their beds hours ago, asking their parents if they were nearly there yet and the parents, as they have done so for centuries replying, "Yep we're nearly there guys, but you need to stop asking every third step you take, cause that makes it seem longer."

There is a bus that circulates around the track with headlights blazing in the beautiful cool evening and the bus only stops at the top of the track and the bottom of the track. Nevertheless numerous people stick their thumbs out hoping the bus driver will take pity on them and stop. The bus driver never does, however I also noticed a police vehicle circulating occasionally to keep an eye on the safety and no doubt health of walkers.

I heard people, including the two Aussies I was walking with, complaining of sore knees, sore calf muscles and sore backs as they staggered with a beer in their hand looking down at the track probably wondering why they weren't tucked up in their beds and if they were nearly there yet.

In fact, at one stage on the first sector my two Aussie mates started having doubts and as they stopped walking one asked the other if he wanted to go back to the camp, to our other mates who were sitting in the comfort of their camp chairs keeping warm around our usual evening camp fire. The reply he got was "I will go back if Ngahi does." I pretended not to hear and kept walking, not saying a word, especially about my sore ankle which was killing me. When they started walking and rejoined me I told them they would be okay and that we were nearly there. They laughed because like me, they knew we were miles away from reaching the top of the mountain. Just then the bus rolled past.

I did a short haka to my mates when we got to the top of the racetrack and a sector aptly named Skyline. From there the walk was all downhill and much easier. We smiled and sometimes laughed aloud when we heard a repeat of comments from people walking uphill towards us on the other side of the track including the one quoted at the start of this column. We were warmly and heartily welcomed back to the campfire by our mates who had spent the past couple of hours solving the problems of the world while drinking alcohol and staring hypnotically into the flames. I rejoined them with my ice cold water.

The Bathurst racetrack walk got me thinking about my professional and personal journeys. The track is clearly defined and there was no way I was leaving it, given Australia's poisonous yuckies such as snakes. Each of us has tracks to take as well with hazards to the side of the right path. No one completes this journey on their own. It helps when we have buddies to walk the track with. If we are going to walk the track we need to make a decision at some point of the day to do so and it is helpful to tell someone else about that decision or goal. Safety when we are walking the track is important and it is good to know that a bus or safety vehicle joins us on our journeys occasionally to keep an eye on us all. Thanks Dr Harry Pert.

So how is your track walk going? Me pehea to hikoi haere i runga i to huarahi tika. When you walk the Bathurst racetrack it is hard to believe that skilled drivers race cars at over 300km/h on it. The track is the same for them and for walkers. Kei a koe te tikanga, how you use your track on your journey is up to you.

Ngahihi o te ra Bidois is an international leadership speaker, VIP Host, author, leader, husband and father. See www.ngahibidois.com for more of his story.