Captain Australia reaches Murray Bridge on his 15,000km walk around the country

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Not all heroes wear capes, but Simon Harvey does.

The Brisbane man’s alter ego, Captain Australia, plodded into Murray Bridge on Monday night, 111 days after beginning a trek that will eventually take him on a lap of the nation.

Why would anyone choose to spend two years walking 15,000 kilometres?

Captain Australia is doing it to raise money for the Kids’ Cancer Project, a charity which funds research into better and kinder treatments for cancer in children.

“Cancer doesn’t just try to kill you; it tries to suck the hope out of your life,” he said.

“I just had this innate sympathy.”

But he was also doing it for himself, Mr Harvey said.

He had a rough upbringing, culminating in his decision to leave home at 15 and walk from Brisbane to Sydney to live with his grandmother.

He did it, too, sleeping rough along the way.

In time he grew up and built a life for himself: he started a family, rose through the ranks at his employer and eventually established a lucrative travel insurance business.

Then came the two big Cs.

COVID-19 killed his business, and stage four cancer nearly killed him.

The treatment was brutal – but more brutal, he said, was the experience of watching children go through the same thing.

He decided that taking another “big walk”, from Brisbane to Melbourne, would help him rebuild his body and his sense of hope.

“I started diarising it, the first walk … because I thought the cancer was inevitably going to come back and kill me,” he said.

“I thought I was talking to my future sons.

“The walk was my vehicle for healing.”

It would also, ultimately, raise $165,000 for the Kids’ Cancer Project.

This year, then, he set himself a more ambitious goal: walk right around Australia, and raise $1 million along the way.

He had passed $40,000 by the start of this week thanks to donors big and small, including $207.50 from the social club at Tailem Bend’s Riverside Hotel.

Hotels, supermarkets and restaurants have furnished him with beds and meals all along the way, as well.

During his walk, Mr Harvey said he had learned a lot: not just about the lifespan of a good pair of boots – 1500km, give or take – but about the kindness of strangers, about people’s willingness to walk alongside him on his quest, and about himself.

“Who am I, what am I about, what am I for?” he asked.

“You can go through your life searching for who you are.

“I’m not saying I am Captain Australia, but I aspire to those comic book values: hope, inspiration, all of that.”

• Donate: www.capsbiglap.au/donate.
• More information: Visit captainaustralia.online or search for “Captain Australia’s Big Lap” on Facebook.

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