Leigh’s epic walk across the Riverina has taken her through rain, hail, shine and lots of flies. Photo: Leigh Swansborough.
Wagga’s intrepid tramper Leigh Swansborough has been trekking across the Riverina for almost six weeks now on her mission to visit every town and village in the redistributed federal electorate before the 2025 election.
The journey has taken Leigh through rain, hail, and shine and she’s sweated her way through some of the steamiest weather the region has ever seen.
“I’ve picked the perfect time haven’t I?” She said with a weary laugh.
“Fortunately I have good rain gear and waterproof cases for my cameras and stuff, so it’s all good.”
Photobombed by a cheezel on the Hume Highway. Photo: Leigh Swansborough.
The journey began in Wagga, the traditional centre of the Riverina seat, but Leigh and her trusty cart Lulu have already pushed beyond the old boundaries.
“Once the electorate changed and we took out Forbes and Parkes and then we added the Yass Valley and Upper Lachlan, I realised that I don’t really know my electorate anymore,” Leigh said.
“I’m going to be voting for people in these communities and I don’t really know them or their issues, so I decided to do what I know best and get out on foot and just walk and talk to people.
“It’s been a real geography lesson for me too because I never really explored this part of Australia when I was a kid growing up in Wagga.”
Leigh and Lulu at the beginning of the adventure. Photo: Leigh Swansborough.
After living overseas and completing epic walks through largely untravelled regions like Alaska and Iran, Leigh returned to Wagga and felt a lack of political engagement and a disconnect between the major population centres and the smaller towns and villages.
“The more I walk the electorate, I’m finding that it’s even more pronounced and these little towns feel they have been forgotten and in places like Wagga we really have no clue what’s going on in these little towns,” she said.
Leigh and Lulu are hard to miss in hi-viz yellow and teal and people have been more than happy to pull over for a yarn.
She said locals had expressed concerns over access to healthcare and abortion services, the cost of living, housing shortages and a broad range of water issues.
“In the rural areas, people will stop and have roadside conversations with me because when you’re walking at 5 km/h on back roads, or even on the main highway, people are curious,” Leigh said.
“We talk about where they’re from and why I’m walking, and then it leads to them talking about their communities.
“I’ll also post on some of the local community Facebook pages to say I’m coming into town and this is where I’ll be if you want to have a chat and I’ve found people are hearing about what I’m doing through word of mouth.”
Yass is one of the new additions to the Riverina electorate. Photo: Leigh Swansborough.
After reaching Yass this week, Leigh will explore the Yass Valley for the next couple of weeks before heading into the Upper Lachlan around Christmas.
She said there was little awareness of the Riverina electoral boundary changes in the communities she’d visited.
“In my walk so far, probably 85 per cent of people don’t know there’s been boundary changes unless they’re politically engaged and are really following the news,” she said, adding that she had encountered some frustration among former Eden-Monaro voters.
“People in Yass have told me that they are not happy that they’ve been put into our electorate because they were happy where they were with [Labor MP] Kristy McBain.
“While I think it’s unlikely that a Labor candidate would be able to flip the seat, I think it raises interesting possibilities for a strong independent candidate.”
You can keep up with Leigh’s adventures and follow her video blog through social media.
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