COVID, La Nina and even a broken ankle (an injury sustained shortly after her very walk, in Kiama, NSW) wasn’t enough to stop the cameras from rolling for Julia Zemiro’s new show Great Australian Walks.
“I keep saying that the broken ankle turned out to be the best thing that happened to me,” laughs the Home Delivery star, 56, as we catch up on the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk ahead of her new show airing on SBS.
“I absolutely have it in me to chuck in TV.”
(Image: Supplied)“It put me out of action for three months, but it gave me a whole new perspective when I did return because I had such an appreciation for what it was like to not be able to walk – it made me want to look after my body and become as strong as I could,” she says.
Julia’s new 10-part series, which sees her hit some of Australia’s most popular walking tracks in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania – unfortunately due to COVID restrictions they couldn’t film in some parts of the country – has literally and metaphorically changed her perspective on a lot of things and even made her consider quitting TV for good.
“I absolutely have it in me to chuck in TV and do something else, I’ve had a lovely time but what could I retrain as?! Nothing I suspect,” she quips with a cheeky twinkle in her eye.
“If you have any suggestions, please email them to me!”
Zemiro ventured into the great outdoors for her latest project.
(Image: Supplied)Filming the show was cathartic for Julia, who is only just processing what the past few years of COVID and lockdowns has meant for her.
It’s been a big few years. Her father, a former French restaurateur, died just before the pandemic and the self-confessed city girl swapped Sydney, where she spent her early years after moving to Australia from France as a toddler, for the Southern Highlands to move in with her partner during lockdown.
But back to the show, Julia says it taught her a lot, especially the local legends she met along the way – from Tasma Walton, who shares her story about how she discovered she was Indigenous, as well as former Wallabies star David Pocock and Ukrainian chess champion Irina Berezina, who fled Ukraine after Chernobyl and walks 50km a week.
Elsewhere, former MasterChef star and owner of Byron Bay’s Karkalla, Mindy Woods, teaches Julia about bush tucker and how to forage for native food.
The beloved host is best known for her role on Rockwiz.
(Image: Instagram)“Walking slows you down, it slows down your brain,” says Julia of her experience on the show.
“I’ve fought for a lot of causes in my life but seeing the coastal erosion as we walked made me think, maybe this is the only cause worth fighting for? At one point, I become a bit overwhelmed and I started to feel a bit inadequate about what I’ve been doing and feeling scared that we’ll lose it [the environment] all… I thought maybe I picked the wrong job and I actually want to be here, helping.”
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