Team WEHI Relay 2020

We did it! Over the course of one gorgeously sunny weekend, Team WEHI walked as individuals, in pairs, and occasionally in small groups in suburbs all across Melbourne! From Black Rock to Essendon West, from Pascoe Vale to Wantirna, and of course all over Carlton, Parkville, Travancore and the CBD, we walked and ran by day and by night to raise awareness for the Cancer Council, and keep the Relay going.

Even though many of us only crossed paths briefly, and some of us not at all, we did this Relay together, and together we have raised more than $2,000 for the Cancer Council! And of course, this is only the beginning, or perhaps the middle – we’ve done our laps for this year, but we will be back again in 2021 to do more laps, answer more of your questions, and hear more of your stories. (We are so looking forward to seeing some of our fellow Relayers in person!)

The rest of this post will be a photojournal of our Relay, but before I get to that, I want to say three big thank yous.

A very big thank you first of all to those of you who were able to donate to us (and if you were thinking of doing so but haven’t had time yet, it’s not too late!). We know it’s been a really tough year for a lot of people, and we are beyond thrilled that you chose to donate to this fundraiser!

Another great big thank you, to everyone who has been following our adventures and reading these posts. (And a special shout-out to the students of Trinity Primary School for their questions – we are looking forward to answering lots more of them over the coming weeks!). We hope you have enjoyed meeting some of us, learning a bit more about what we do, and maybe even doing an experiment or two at home!

We’ve loved doing this too, so don’t lose the bookmark for this website yet – we’ll be keeping this website going, and you can expect more scientist questions and answers, more profiles of our scientists, and more fun experiments you can try for yourself. Science is something we love, and it’s also very important for our world – we hope we can continue sharing our love of it here!

Last of all, the biggest thank you of all goes to the Cancer Council. You do such great work, and we are so proud to be a part of what you do. Thank you for being our inspiration!

(OK, one last, very self-indulgent thank you – as Captain of Team WEHI, I just want to thank everyone on the team and all our brilliant Answerers Of Questions for being so incomparably and overwhelmingly awesome. I am so proud of what we achieved together – thank you for making this event so much fun and so fantastic!)

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First Lap

Members of Team WEHI converged on Royal Park to begin our Relay with a lap or two of the grass circle.

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Writing WEHI across Royal Park…

John, Natasha and Ziggy wrote WEHI around Royal Park and Carlton. Natasha would like you to pay particular attention to the dot on the ‘i’ at the end, as she is very proud of it!

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Hope in the city

Meanwhile, in the CBD, Jen and Darryl thought they would bring some hope to the situation…

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…and in Travancore

Another rendition of Hope, this time from Rachel, Kate and their trusty sidekicks!

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A Relay in the City

Catherine and Leonie joined Jen and Darryl to write ‘Relay’ across the city and up into the Carlton gardens, and they didn’t get lost even once (this came as a surprise to all concerned…)!

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Life in the Carlton Gardens…

Hema wrote Life across Carlton, pausing along the way to give a virtual high-five to Catherine and Leonie on their way back from finishing ‘Relay’!

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… and in Carlton…

Marie-Liesse and her crew found another version of Life in the streets of Carlton…

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… and in Wantirna!

Alison’s attempt to write Life in Wantirna did not go entirely to plan…

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Meanwhile, along the coast…

Lorraine kept the baton moving in the southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, with a walk along the coast from Black Rock to Brighton East…

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The marathon!

Susi and Andreas walked a full marathon! Note Andreas’s vintage Cancer Council T-shirt… from back in the 1990s?

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Enter the dragon…

It’s not a Relay without a night walk, and it’s not Team WEHI without the dragon onesie! (For COVID-safety reasons, this was, in fact, a brand new dragon onesie). Catherine and Andrew wandered the back alleys of Coburg to get that last little word written. (Would you want to meet a dragon in a back alley at night?)

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Science never sleeps…

Meanwhile, Jen and Darryl took a much more scenic late night walk around the Docklands, as a reminder that science never sleeps in its quest to cure cancer!

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Shining a light on the work of the Cancer Council

Mike and Anna got up bright and early on Sunday to shine a light on the work of the Cancer Council!

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The Final lap!

A final lap of the grass circle on Royal Park on Sunday morning… finishing up with a picnic to celebrate an amazing 24 hours of Relay!

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But wait… there’s more!

Gluttons for punishment, or just for ice cream? Not content with their marathon on Saturday, Susi and Andreas decided to ‘cool down’ with a relaxing half marathon on Sunday!

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