Four walk the Larapinta trail

The Reverend Kirsty Ross, Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School, VIC. The Reverend Wendy Morecroft, St John’s Grammar School, SA. The Reverend Dr Katherine Rainger, Radford College, ACT. The Reverend Gillian Moses, St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School, QLD Four ASA chaplains. 65 km of hard trail. Countless rocky outcrops. One great cause.

In the last week of June 2021, four intrepid ASA Chaplains met for the first time in the foyer of an Alice Springs hotel to embark on the ABM Larapinta Challenge. The challenge consists of five days of hiking and camping on one of the great walks of Australia, the Larapinta Trail.

Together, The Reverend Gillian Moses (St Aidan’s Anglican Girls’ School), The Reverend Wendy Morecroft (St John’s Grammar School), The Reverend Dr Katherine Rainger (Radford College) and The Reverend Kirsty Ross (Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School) laced up their boots and shouldered their packs to help raise money for the Anglican Board of Mission (ABM). With fellow hikers from all over Australia they raised more than $124,000.

The experience was a significant one for all four Chaplains. Below, they reflect on the different elements of the experience.

Why the Larapinta Trail? The Larapinta Trail had been a bucket list item for Wendy for the last ten years, and she was keen to do a guided walk with an Indigenous focus. Katherine’s decision was more spontaneous, inspired by someone else posting on social media that they were going. Gillian was motivated by her daughter (also a priest) signing up, and by spending ‘slow time’ seeing the desert at walking pace, while Kirsty signed up in 2020, when Melbourne was in the midst of what turned out to be a 111-day lockdown and walking in the wide spaces of the Northern Territory was very appealing.

The greatest challenge Most walkers were not seasoned trekkers, and the training required for the trek was a challenge in itself. Apart from the training, the chaplains were also trying to raise money for ABM, who provided lots of assistance. The four schools proved to be great fundraising partners who really stepped up for the cause through casual clothes days, student led events, and donations.

On the walk itself, early starts each day before dawn meant that tiredness quickly became a factor, and a number of walkers were battling injuries by the end of the walk, from blisters and bruised feet to torn ligaments.

Kirsty keeps a photo of herself on the summit of Mt Rwetyepme on her office wall, to remind herself that she can do anything she puts her mind to.

What is so special about ABM? All the training and walking was to support the amazing work of ABM, both in Australia with First Nations communities and overseas in places such as Myanmar, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines and Gaza. Its model of partnering with local communities here and abroad means that its projects are targeted and embedded in the community. The chaplains’ appreciated the partnership model, which values the knowledge and expertise of local communities. It is a model they try to bring to their schools’ service learning experiences.

The highlight of the trip Gillian said walking into the meteor impact site known as the Ormiston Pound in silence, just after dawn, with only the spinifex pigeons for company was a definitive highlight for her, while Wendy ranks walking out to Counts Point over really rocky ground, to see the eight nearest ancient mountain ranges and others in the distance as her highlight. Kirsty and Katherine both nominated the sunrise from the top of Mt Rwepyetme, ascended in the dark and descended in the brightening day.

A key feature for all was the Eucharist held for the Coming of the Light, commemorating 150 years since English missionaries came to the people of the Torres Strait. All four chaplains concelebrated with two other women priests in the soothing sandy riverbed of the Larapinta (Finke) River under the shade of a majestic river gum. All reported feeling a deep connection with the First Peoples of this land, and the God who has always been with them.

“But in the end it was the other people we walked with as a community of pilgrims, singing as we walked or as we gathered around the fire at night,” Gillian said. “Some we already knew well as colleagues or family, but others we met for the first time, quickly bonding over dawn coffee, welcome fires, and evening prayer.”

As Katherine observes: “It was like ‘camp for grown-ups and it was wonderful!”

We are all changed by our walking on Arrente Country, and we are confident that our experiences will continue to shape us and our school communities.

What will you take back into chaplaincy from this experience? Gillian said when walking the Larapinta Trail, one cannot help but notice that we are very small and young, in the midst of something vast and ancient.

“This can be comforting at a time when many of us are experiencing existential crises brought about by COVID, modern life, and all sorts of pressures. We can step out of time and place and be held by timelessness and eternity,” she said.

Wendy, as a relative newcomer both to ordained ministry and to School Chaplaincy, said she made the most of every opportunity to gather experiences and resources from the other chaplains. She said she also benefited from an informal mentoring conversation with a Principal taking part in the Trail who added greatly to her perspective on school life.

“It would be great to see other school principals taking up the opportunity to walk with their chaplains on future ABM treks,” Wendy said.

Kirsty said her key learning is that her school is proud of its Anglican identity and is keen to support the work of the Church’s largest mission agency. For Katherine it is deeper commitment to learning from First Nations peoples and their knowledge of Country, wherever we walk.