Vale Alan Waddell

Very sad news arrived yesterday. Alan Waddell, aged 94, who has been such an inspiration to many died at 3am yesterday morning. Alan had been in poor health for a few months. In 2002, after his wife of 60 years died, Alan took up walking, and set himself the task of walking every street in Sydney's 232 suburbs. His adventures have been resorded on his website Walk Sydney Streets, with the help of his sons John and Graham. In an interview Alan said: "I know that Marj wouldn’t have wanted me to just sit around and give up on life, so I started walking some nearby streets and it grew from there.”

Walk Sydney Streets will be maintained into the future by his family, as a backlog of photos is posted; it is sure to bring many more delights.

Farewell, Alan - you brought fun and whimsy, a wicked sense of humour, and a sense of old-fashioned, priceless wonderment into many hearts, including mine. I never met Alan face to face, but I always had hope that one day our paths would cross in real life as well as the cyberworld. His memory will come with me as I pursue my own projects on foot around this city we share such a love of. My condolences to Alan's family who are part of the universal family of the blogosphere.

The Sydney Morning heral tribute to Alan can be found here.

Thankyou to John for permission to use the photos from Alan's site