This week I have been very busy. I drove about one hundred kilometres to the east coast to visit friends. We hadn’t seen one another for a very long time so the meeting was eagerly awaited as we had so much to talk about.Two years ago, one of the friends had saved my life while we were visiting Turkey. A run-away car hit me, throwing me 10 metres on my face. I re-gained consciousness a week later, with lots of injuries, hallucinating on pain killers and my friend at my bedside. She is very special.
This friend of mine is a walker and walks the famous walking tracks of the world. When my accident happened she was about to commence a walk in the mountains in Asian Turkey. Other places she has walked in are Japan, Spain, France, the U.K. to name a few.
Do you think you would be lonely doing something like this? My friend always finds interesting people to talk to even if it is only with sign language. Sometimes she carries a tent for overnight stops; other times she sleeps in a hostel. Many times she is the only walker in that stretch of the trail. Always it is rough, steep and very exposed for the whim of the weather. At the end of the trails her boots are worn out and ready to be disposed of. To embark on something like this, you need to be strong and healthy.
I don’t think this boot would feel at all comfortable on my foot, or on my friend’s. Blisters would be the order of the day with feet to be rested until healed. Of course a good backpack that sat softly on the back and shoulders would be a prime requisite also. Sore shoulders and an aching back would make the walking tedious. An aching and tired back could be a daily expectation and no hot shower at the end of the day to bring relief.
At the moment my friend is thinking about where she might walk next year. As part of her walk she might go back to Japan to the same walk she did this year and last year. Her reasoning is that the trails were very rugged and tricky to follow and easy to be diverted and she took one of the wrong turnings last time. At the end of each day’s travel there was a Temple and she wants to go back to one of them again to rectify her journey.
She said each temple was different and interesting and some were more appealing than others. They fitted into the environment around them such as this one with its lovely reflections in the lake frontage and mountain background.
She has walked much of the Pilgrim trails in Europe that stretch through Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. Rarely has she travelled the trails and not met other like-minded people as well as the people who live along the trails.