Walking God’s speed: A three-week Jubilee pilgrimage across Tasmania

By Josh Low

When Kingston-Channel parishioner John Prichard set out to walk across Tasmania during Lent, he envisioned a long, symbolic trek to mark his retirement after 42 years of work.

However, a sudden and unexpected death of a close friend transformed his plan into something far more profound.

“My initial thoughts were simply to conduct a long walk,” John admits. “[But it] dawned on me that my walk should be something far beyond a mere physical pursuit; it should be first and foremost a spiritual one, a pilgrimage, in keeping with this Jubilee Year 2025 theme ‘Pilgrims of Hope’,” he said.

“And so, it became a pilgrimage of thanksgiving for all the benefits I had enjoyed in life through my work up until this time, and a pilgrimage of hope and guidance for the next 25+ years of my life, God-willing.”

Setting off from Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Devonport with his 18kg backpack, John’s three-week long walk spanned Tasmania’s varied and striking landscapes.

From the pastures and townships of the north, through the rugged beauty of the central plateau sub-alpine lakes country, down the central midlands and Coal Valley, across the Derwent River into Hobart, and down the western shoreline of the expansive Derwent estuary, past the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and through the hills of the Huon Valley, John arrived at his destination: St James Church in Cygnet.

Describing it as a ‘Tasmanian Way of St James’, John added that he was also able to visit many churches along the way, including the four designated pilgrimage sites in Tasmania for this Jubilee Year.

Walking alone for three weeks, often in silence, he quickly found that the simple pace of 5km/h was not just a physical rhythm, but a spiritual one.

He recalled the words of Kosuke Koyama: “The speed of God is three miles per hour,” (5 km/h) – the pace at which Jesus would have walked during His earthly ministry showing us the way to God.

John said it was at this speed that we can “see, hear, smell and feel nature and all its beautiful intricacies.”

“We come into a much more intimate union with God’s creation, appreciate it far more and become more prayerful, more aware and more grateful as we walk slowly with Our Lord,” he said.

He added that the wonderful things about his pilgrimage were the small miracles and acts of kindness experienced along the way, saying it felt as if his journey was being guarded and watched over.

These included chance encounters with fruit pickers from Vanuatu and East Timor, a local couple who saved him hours of walking by suggesting a new bridge route, and a lost debit card returned in Deloraine by a Solomon Islander walker via former Youth Office Director Sam Clear.

One particular moment of the pilgrimage saw him arrive at Notre Dame Priory in Colebrook unannounced, startling one of the young monks who was cooking lunch.

After explaining his pilgrimage and then joining the monks in praying the Liturgy of the Hours and for lunch, he continued another 18 kilometres to the next campsite.

“One of the monks at the Priory, Brother John, explained to me that it was most fortuitous that I had arrived today because on that very morning, the monks’ prayers had included a special prayer of providing hospitality to pilgrims!

“It was no wondering the rather startled and flustered manner of the young monk! I had just appeared out of the blue, almost in fulfillment of their morning prayers!”

Even a simple request for water near Richmond turned biblical, when a vineyard owner, Malcolm, handed him a bottle of Pinot Noir with a laugh: “You came for water, I turned it into wine.”

With each step along the way, John said he was able to engage in meaningful conversations sparked by the scallop shell around his neck—a symbol of pilgrimage.

People spoke of faith, doubt, and their own spiritual journeys, with conversations always friendly, gentle and centred on God, faith, the power of prayer and the benefit of silent, contemplative pilgrimage.

“Walking God’s speed naturally facilitates discussion and curiosity about God in our lives,” he said. “It is a beautiful way of evangelising in a non-threatening way.”

For John, this pilgrimage wasn’t just a journey across Tasmania, but a reorientation of life – a metanoia (Greek for a transformative change of heart).

“Unfortunately, every day cocooned in our speeding convenient vehicles, we are cut off from nature and our community, and the opportunity to hold meaningful conversations with real live people.

“Instead, we find ourselves listening to one way, drip-fed secular propaganda, where God is whitewashed out of our everyday lives.

“If we take the time and the effort to walk openly with God on our own searching journeys, God will open up opportunities for us to talk openly with people we meet, and to spread the Good News in a natural way, so that those people too may embark on their own journeys of faith towards God.”

Over this three-week pilgrimage, John Prichard walked, talked, and prayed, and spread seeds of hope, and in the process discovered that sometimes, the slowest journeys bring us closest to God.