• Cheri Imlah is leading a one-woman crusade to stop live animal exports. Photo by Jeremy Dixon

It’s not quite Gandhi’s salt march to Dandi, but 80-year-old Cheri Imlah has driven solo from her tiny hometown in NSW to Fremantle to protest the live sheep trade.

Ms Imlah had held a number of rallies in Bonalbo after watching a video critical of the live export trade from Fremantle Port, but felt like she was hitting a brick wall because of the lack of political action.

So she decided to cross the Nullarbor, collecting signatures and letters of support along the way.

“I didn’t want to just sit at home and do nothing,” she said on Wednesday morning from a makeshift stand she’s set up at Pioneer Park opposite the Fremantle train station.

“I thought this is at the coal face here, so I should come here and collaborate with the people that have been fighting for 15 years to stop live exports.

“I’m collecting letters on the way back in Adelaide and Melbourne and then I’ll got to Kevin Rudd’s electoral office in Brisbane around August 3.

“I might have only got a couple of dozen signed in a day, but it’s well worth it.

“They are death ships. Thousands of deaths on these voyages are caused by the failure to eat the pellet feed. The animals have a slow death on that long journey to the Middle East which I think is absolutely appalling.”

The local Ban Live Exports group heard of Ms Imlah’s campaign and organised a rally to coincide with her arrival in the port city last Sunday.

Ms Imlah said some families and friends thought she was bonkers for driving half way around Australia. By the time the octogenarian gets home she will have clocked up nearly 9000 kilometres.

“I don’t care as long as I get the message out, how many sheep die and why they die,” she said.

by BRENDAN FOSTER