The Way

It is 6 weeks and 1 day until we leave for Spain. Dad, Bilby and I will walk the last section of the Camino del Norte (hopefully) and meet up with Mum in Santiago de Compostela.

Traditionally I think this is the point where I’m supposed to enumerate the reasons for walking/embarking on this trip. Honest answer is that I don’t entirely know. There are a lot of half finished fragments. But the most important one is that Dad mentioned that he was interested; I’ve always (at least for 20 years) been interested; and in my general feelings about these sorts of things that was enough to request leave from work and then let providence sort it out.

I am worried about some of the sections of the walk. I’ve never knowingly walked more than 30km in a day and certainly not sequentially. So I am trying to be sensible and adding in more training hikes. This has had the entirely foreseeable consequence of realising that a) this will be hard and b) that adding in a 3+ hour hike most days is not easy when you regularly work more than 60 hours a week.

Yesterday I walked from home to the top of Mt Coot-tha and back with some detours. All up around 15km and a variety of moderately challenging terrain. It was also nearly 30 degrees. I feel fine today and will go for another long walk this afternoon.

What a prosaic and boring opening. But I’ve been procrastinating and overthinking starting this so in the end any journey starts with a single step.