About a year ago, an idea popped into the head of Eaglehawk resident Dawn Kanost.
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"I lived in Adelaide for about six years, 20 years ago and I thought it would be great either to walk to see my friends or walk to come home," she said.
"After a year of thinking about it, the thought just wouldn't go away. I thought what am I actually going to do."
After scouring the internet for different routes, Ms Kanost formulated a plan.
"I was just looking at it going what do I do, what do I do," she said. "I looked to see a route along the Murray River because I thought that would be cool, but then I saw how long it was and I thought I can't do that.
"But that's when I saw the Chinese migrants' route and I thought ok that's what I'm going to do. My body just thought the walk would be a good idea," she laughed.
During the 1850s, the Victorian Gold Rush was in full swing. People were travelling from all over the world to places like Bendigo and Ballarat to see if they could have any luck finding gold.
Tens of thousands of Chinese migrated to Victoria in that time, often fleeing poverty, famine and violence back in their home country. But the new migrants often experienced discrimination from Europeans in Australia.
In 1855, the government passed the Victorian Act, which limited the number of Chinese who could arrive by ship into Victoria.
Only one Chinese migrant for each ton of the ship's weight was allowed to enter the state via boat. The ship's captain also had to pay a £10 tax per Chinese passenger.
To avoid the extra cost, the ships began carrying Chinese migrants to neighbouring ports in South Australia.
Robe became one of the major stopping points, with more than 17,000 Chinese migrants starting their journey to Victoria from there. They would then walk hundreds of kilometres to get to their final destination.
Ms Kanost does not have any Chinese heritage, but she said the journey of the Chinese migrants fascinated her.
"I'm interested in history and life," she said. "I've got a science degree and I'm a practising artist so I'm interested in things. I also wanted to go to Robe for a beach holiday and I thought that would be good - two goals in one hit."
She booked a one-way train trip to Adelaide and started from the suburb of Forestville on March 12. Walking up to 30 kilometres a day, Ms Kanost spent the next two months following the route many Chinese gold miners took.
She travelled along the South Australian coastline, passing through Robe and the Coorong, before trekking through Victoria along the towns of Dunkeld, Ararat, Avoca, and Maldon. She finished in Bendigo on Thursday morning.
Ms Kanost said she learnt a lot about history and the changes in the landscape during her journey. She also made some keen observations.
"There's a lot of us who like to memorialise or remember things," she said. "The memorials are always a big chunk of concrete with a plaque that says remember there was an inn here, or there was a person who died here at such-a-such a time.
"But where's the Indigenous stuff? It was embarrassingly absent. It was shocking."
Ms Kanost said while she noticed a memorial dedicated to Queen Ethel - the last full-blood Aboriginal woman in Kingston, South Australia - the lack of positive recognition for Indigenous Australians was stark.
"There was another mention of Indigenous people on a memorial but that was about how they killed a bunch of shipwrecked people who then tried to walk to safety," she said.
"There are masses of deaths of Indigenous Australians that aren't remembered. It doesn't have to be about death by any means, but what I'm trying to say is we understand the concept of remembering and acknowledging someone - why are we blind to Indigenous people?
"They have been around for 65,000 years and the more I learn, the more fascinating it becomes. I just hope that we have a chance to learn a lot more."
Ms Kanost said her two-month journey also helped her to reflect on the sheer generosity of many Australians.
"I had a lot of people say to me are you doing this on your own? Aren't you worried because you're a woman?" she said.
"And I was like, why are we asking this? At least half of the population - probably slightly more - are women. My experience is that the vast majority of people are kind and generous."
The 52-year-old said she was "pragmatic" about where she rested during the trek.
"On my last night, I camped in the bush and I did that many times," she said. "If there wasn't any rain, I didn't even bother putting up a tent because I didn't need one.
"I also stayed in caravan parks, motels, and pubs. I particularly liked to stay in historic pubs of that late-1800's era. It would give me a bit more of a sense of what was happening and often the rooms hadn't changed.
"Some people also offered for me to stay in their place and I really only accepted that with one family, only because it made sense to do it at that point.
"A woman in the supermarket also bought me all my food for three to four days of one leg of my journey. People also stopped their cars to check if I was ok. It was just the generosity of people's good heart."
Ms Kanost has completed similar walks in the past but said this 800-kilometre trip between Adelaide and Bendigo was the longest distance she has ever covered.
"I walked from Melbourne to Bendigo when I was about 20 years old, rather spontaneously," she said. "I have also done 350 kilometres of the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
"But this is the first time I've really had to carry everything - food, water, and clothes. I had one outfit for day and another one for night. By the end, I was basically wearing everything because of the cold."
Despite the long trek, Ms Kanost said her body has become stronger for it.
"I've noticed I can't eat as much which is not a problem," she said. "I just realised that my stomach doesn't have room for all of that. If anything, it has been highly positive.
"I was eating fruits and vegetables, tins of fish or dolmades, and slices of meat or fish. I also ate pragmatically so if I got to a town and there was a pub, I would go and eat something there."
Ms Kanost said while she doesn't have any immediate plans to replicate her journey, she hasn't ruled out other trips in the future.
"I'm here and present," she said. "I'm literally going to go back and mop my house, put some clean sheets on the bed, light a candle, enjoy putting the heater on, and making myself something good to eat.
"My life has been full of adventures. I don't think this will be the last one."
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Tara Cosoleto
Journalist covering courts and general news at the Bendigo Advertiser.
Journalist covering courts and general news at the Bendigo Advertiser.
