‘We’ll be tested’: Fran’s 110km-a-day sprint across Australia
By Tim Elliott
This month, former English soccer international Fran Hurndall (right), 32, is running from Perth to Sydney to raise money for domestic violence victims. Her partner in “logistics” and love, police officer Natalie Gidas, 39, will be by her side.
Natalie Gidas (left) and Fran Hurndall. “We became like a mirror to one another, which allowed us to see what we each needed to work on,” says Gidas.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Fran: I met Nat online, in December 2022, on the Gold Coast; I’d just moved there from Sydney. Our first date was at a Chinese-Japanese restaurant in Mermaid Beach. She was 15 minutes late; she’d come from work. I knew she was a forensic police officer, which I found fascinating, so the whole conversation, virtually, was about her job. I asked about her worst case, and she said it was a woman who’d been set alight by her husband. I found it so honourable that Nat was putting herself on the line like that every day. I also thought she was beautiful. Even though her heritage is Greek, she has these lovely blue eyes you get lost in.
We started seeing each other. I was renting at the time but, after four weeks, I was spending so much time with Nat that I moved in with her. It had its challenges. For instance, we both have dogs. Mine’s a dachshund called Seven, which was my football-jersey number. She has a dalmatian called Pirate.
At the beginning, Pirate would sleep on her bed and the couch. I’m a bit OCD and it made me feel so unclean. I said to Nat, “I can’t deal with the dog hair,” so she agreed to stop letting Pirate get on the couch and bed. There was also Nat’s eating. She chews quite loudly and, at the beginning of the relationship, she’d chew with her mouth open. I was like, “Do you know that it’s rude to eat with your mouth open?” And she said, “Oh, no one ever told me that.”
‘I realised then that she chose love over being right, whereas, in the past, I’d chosen being right over love.’
Fran Hurndall
At the time, I thought, “The chewing, the dog hair – how does someone get through life like that?” I was judging her. Then I realised that Nat wasn’t judging me. She was like, “How do we resolve this?” I realised then that she chose love over being right, whereas, in the past, I’d chosen being right over love.
At the time, I was working remotely for Transport NSW. But then, a week before Christmas 2023, I was made redundant, which was very stressful. I’d be at the shops and I’d call her and say, “I don’t have enough money for groceries” and she’d calm me down. It went on for three months. Sometimes I struggled to get out of bed. She’d come home from work and see me crying and jump into bed and hug me and say, “It’s OK; I’ve got you, babe.”
It was then that I got the idea to dribble a soccer ball from the Gold Coast to Sydney, which raised $20,000 for women’s sport. After that, I thought, “What’ll I do next?” So I decided to run from Perth to Sydney in less than 40 days to raise money for domestic violence, which has affected my sister. As a police officer, Nat has seen lots of DV, so it means a lot to her, too.
We’ve thrown caution to the wind and taken out a loan to pay for everything, but Nat has never wavered. She says: “You’re going to change the world, babe.” She sees more potential in me than I see in myself. We have a saying, “As long as we’re both in the boat and willing to row, then that’s all we’ll ever need.”
Natalie: We met on Tinder; she sent me some photos of herself with a black eye, having knocked herself out while surfing the week before. I thought, “Wow, this chick’s wild!”
On our first date, I walked in and saw that charismatic, cheeky smile and thought, “She’s way more attractive than in her photos!” I wanted to kiss her and, at the end of the night, I leant in, but she moved away and it was one of those awkward, half-lip, half-cheek ones. But we clearly liked each other. She needed a new mattress so, the next day, we went shopping for one. We found one in the shop and lay down on it and were still there an hour later, chatting. I’m not sure what the staff thought.
‘I wanted affection and a cuddle, and Fran wasn’t like that: she didn’t know how.’
Natalie Gidas
We started going out, but there was a period of teething problems. For a start, she’s incredibly squeamish. She can’t pick up dog poo: she’d be walking the dogs and call me at work talking about how disgusting it was. She’d flip out if there were maggots in the bin and she can’t deal with cockroaches. I’d just go, “Babe, that’s nothing. I’ve been to crime scenes with dead bodies.”
There were other things, too. I wanted affection and a cuddle, and she wasn’t like that: she didn’t know how. But she was good at communicating on a deep, almost spiritual level, which I was terrible at. I’d been in the police force for 18 years and was a robot. So we weren’t giving each other what we needed. At that point, you could think, “This is broken”, and walk away. But we were like, “No, we can fix it.” We became like a mirror to one another, which allowed us to see what we each needed to work on.
At that stage, I was closed off and using alcohol: I’d drink most nights and go so hard most weekends that I’d vomit. That was my release from dealing with work and not knowing who I was. But that wasn’t her thing, so I had six months off alcohol and it changed everything for me.
At the same time, she had a lot going on. She’d just come out to her parents and I was her first same-sex relationship. She’d also been made redundant. It turned into me supporting her financially, which was fine with me because I can see the person she is, the way she dreams, what she wants to do: she has such conviction.
Running across Australia isn’t your nine-to-five job and that’s so appealing to me, especially being in the police service, which is so regimented. It makes me think: what am I capable of? Do I want to be in policing for the rest of my life? No! So what do I want to do?
Our last charity run, from the Gold Coast to Sydney, was about 30 kilometres a day, which is a lot, but this is next level. It’s 110 kilometres a day. We want to raise $1 million, which will go towards building homes for women who’ve been affected by domestic violence. I’m doing the logistics for the run. We’ll be tested in a whole new way, but I’m excited. The aim is to have our relationship survive – and for me to avoid chewing with my mouth open.
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