Community & Business
24 June, 2026
One Step Max travels through Gilgandra on awareness mission
Stemming from a personal journey of his own, One Step Max, has set out to raise awareness for suicide by walking 700,000 to honour every life who died by suicide.
Max, known as 'One Step Max', is an ordinary man who is on an extraordinary journey.
He started the event last year where he walked from Albury to Adelaide. This year, Max started his journey in Goondiwindi before making his way to Inverell and then to Gunnedah.
His choice in routes is not random, however, each one spelling out a word that holds meaning from his life experiences.
“Last year I walked Albury to Adelaide…I had drug and alcohol problems for a long time. So that stood for AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, but I like to call it Anything Anonymous," Max said.
“Then this year I went from Goondiwindi to Inverell to Gunnedah, which is GIG because when I was younger I used to be a roadie and I went on tour with the Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, and Phil Collins,” he said.
One step Max isn’t alone in his journey though. Using social media as a tool, he works to share his travels through community groups where people can donate a kilometre to the cause.
“I have public social media pages and when you join one of those groups, you'll donate a kilometre, and there's others that walk extra kilometres and then donate them to me,” he said.
So far, Max has been able to reach 105,000 steps.
On Saturday, June, 13 Max arrived in Gilgandra, where he was welcomed warmly by locals. Max explained how he always appreciates the smaller towns, noting how kind the people are.
“Gilgandra was lovely, I stayed at the showgrounds and I hung out with the blokes from the men's shed. A bunch of characters those fellas,” Max said.
“I prefer spending a bit of time in smaller towns as I find them a bit more receptive.” He said.
While in Gilgandra, Max met quite a few locals including the mayor as well as Trish Henry from Gilgandra Wellways who worked with Dubbo Anaconda to donate a tent to Max. The gesture not only warming his heart, but his nights as well.
“I met Trish, and she was beautiful,” Max said.
“She said she phoned Anaconda from Dubbo for me and they donated a tent, that was pretty cool,” he said.
While the walk is long and at times lonely, that doesn’t deter Max who says he is never alone and enjoys meeting all sorts of new people.
“I think of [the walk as] more of an adventure than a challenge,” he said.
“Like, if I'm walking up a hill and it's too steep I'll stop and sit down and when I'm good again, I'll get up and walk a bit more. Then if I'm tired again, I'll sit back down and relax. “I enjoy the journey and don't worry about the destination,” said Max.
Support Resources:
Lifeline Australia - 13 11 14 www.lifeline.org.au
13YARN (13 92 76) www.13yarn.org.au
If a life is in danger call Triple Zero (000)
