05/09/2026
Matayo had one goal…
To WALK to his school formal. 🚶🏽♂️❤️
At 3am, he set off from Kallangur.
At 9am, while I was teaching my Zumba class, I received a call from one of his teachers asking if I was aware that Matayo had left home at 3am.
Who knows what they were thinking 😂 I’m guessing they may have wondered if this poor boy had no other way of getting to his formal! 🤷🏽♀️
I assured them I knew exactly what he was doing and that I 💯 supported him in fulfilling his goal.
After 42km and 12 hours of walking, a teacher stopped him. They were rightly concerned for his safety as part of his route had him alongside 90km/h traffic, and he also wasn’t walking on the correct footpath. We moved him onto the safer path so he could continue.
When we saw him, we cheered him on which lifted his spirits. ❤️
Andrew joined him for the last 30 minutes of the final leg of his epic walk.
I tried to join them too…
I couldn’t keep up with him. 😂
FUN FACTS:
🚗 7 different people stopped to see if he was okay and offer him a lift.
😩 During the final two hours, the pain was so intense that he had to stop and rest about every 30 minutes.
🎶 His most rinsed song of the day was, appropriately, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”.
💡 The whole idea came to him randomly one day while sitting in class.
🤪 Everyone thought he was crazy — and I’m pretty sure that only motivated him more.
😂 When he first told me what he planned to do, I laughed… but I fully supported his crazy idea.
👔 The vintage suit Matayo chose to wear to his formal was the same suit Andrew wore at our wedding. 🥹❤️
One of Matayo’s friends said to me:
“I can’t believe you allowed him to do this.”
My response was:
“Why would I hold him back from achieving his goal?”
Sometimes our job is simply to make sure they’re safe, stand on the sidelines, cheer them on and let them discover what they are capable of.
There will be plenty of times in life where the road is long, people think you’re crazy and stopping would be easier.
We are so incredibly proud of him. ❤️
It felt like we were watching him quite literally walk into adulthood 🥹🫶🏼