Rugby league legend walks 300km to raise $170,000 for dementia research

Rugby league great Royce Simmons has walked more than 300 kilometres from Gilgandra to Cowra in New South Wales’ Central West during a 12-day fundraising journey for dementia research and support services.

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It is pretty tough. You meet other people with dementia and think these people are not too bad, this person is a bit worse and this person is terrible. As you go on, you think you are going to go down that track, so it keeps you on edge.

Simmons, who was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease five years ago at 61, has raised more than $170,000 this year through Royce’s Big Walk. The walk has collected more than $2.2 million over the past five years, and donations remain open until the end of September.

At 67, Simmons says dementia is not only an older person’s disease. “There are a lot of people now living in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are starting to get dementia,” he said. “It is a massive thing that everyone needs to know about.”

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There are a lot of people now living in their 30s, 40s and 50s who are starting to get dementia. It is a massive thing that everyone needs to know about.

Simmons returned to his birthplace, Gooloogong, where family, friends and local schoolchildren welcomed him. His sister Maria Niven said she was proud that he could continue the walk and that it was helping him cope with the disease.

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It is beautiful for him to be able to come back to his hometown. I am glad he had the idea to do the walk, I think it is helping him cope with this rotten disease. I am so proud that he can still do these things.

Former players including Brad Fittler, James Maloney and Darren Britt joined parts of the route. Britt called Simmons “a remarkable bloke” and said he had always helped people in need.

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He is a remarkable bloke.