Tri’s long journey of thanks

By Nick Fogarty, ABC Goulburn Murray

Melbourne Pastor Tri Nguyen would like to say thank you to Australia – and he’s showing his gratitude in the most extraordinary way.

Tri Nguyen fled Vietnam in a boat with his father and sister in 1982. This month he is pulling a replica of the boat as he walks from Melbourne to Canberra to express solidarity with refugees around the world. (ABC Goulburn Murray:Nick Fogarty)

Mr Nguyen, a refugee from the Vietnam War, is walking from Melbourne to Canberra, to express his thanks to the country for welcoming his family.

On Tuesday night he arrived in Wodonga, the nominal halfway point of the walk, pulling behind him a replica of the boat in which he fled Vietnam.

With a full support crew behind him, Mr Nguyen’s overland trek is a very different one to the journey that faced him and his family after the horrific conflict.

Bombs had destroyed their land and his father was taken to a re-education camp in the forest, leaving the family behind.

“There was no future, no hope for us as a family,” Mr Nguyen said.

The family’s chances of escape were helped when his father got a job building boats for the government, but three failed escape attempts would follow.

“The first three was traumatic and horrible,” he said.

“The last time my mum decided she couldn’t go through with it because it was just too much.”

His mother stayed behind with the two younger children, while Tri, his father and his sister managed to escape to the open ocean.

However, a typhoon stranded them on a sandbar near the Thailand-Malaysia border, and they were captured by pirates.

Read the full article by Nick Fogarty from ABC Goulburn Murray.