Leave the road, take the trails

‘Leave the road, take the trails,’ is a quote attributed to Pythagoras. There I was thinking he dealt only in triangles, but no, he was apparently a philosopher, mystic, and scientist as well as a mathematician. I don’t know the background to this quote, but this is one Pythagoreanism I am happy to subscribe to. Leaving the road and taking the trails is certainly my preferred option, and it seems we will be putting this philosophy into practice a great deal more in the not-too-distant future.

As I ponder my open pack and the bed strewn with all the piles of hiking paraphernalia I am readying for my forthcoming hike on Tasmania’s Three Capes Track, I also ponder when my love of hiking first began. I have never done it in any formal way, well, not until recently, when I joined a local hiking group. Until then, I had always taken an ad hoc approach whenever an opportunity arose. Over the years I have explored significant trails such as summiting Ben Nevis with family whilst visiting Sophie in the UK; a hike from home to Maldon on the recently opened rail trail with a friend; my first multi-day hike on Tasmania’s Overland Track, again with family; tackling the full extent of the Goldfields Track during the darkest days of COVID, with various combinations of friends, as permitted by lockdown rules; a therapeutic hike up Mt Beckworth with my lovely girls after we buried my mum last year; just to name a few.

What began as a suggestion from someone else, or a desire to get out and escape lockdown, has now become a compulsion. On a recent holiday with friends, even though there were some planned hikes on the itinerary, I found myself seeking out trails and getting out and about at every opportunity, as an antidote to the many kilometres and hours spent travelling on the road. Hiking has become a necessity for me. It has embedded itself in my DNA and become a way of inoculating myself against the stresses of everyday life. The challenge of hiking in itself, and the beauty of the natural world we hike in, prepares me and strengthens me for life’s challenges.

Wallsy seems to have succumbed to this hiking infliction too, a throwback to his university days, when he tells me he belonged to the hiking club. Back then, he trekked up and over Gippsland, from the Alpine Country to Wilson’s Promontory, and even ventured further afield, exploring the Lerderderg Gorge, and Hanging Rock. More recently, he partially scaled Ben Nevis with us and also Castle Rock in Western Australia. We now own hiking poles and yesterday he joined me on a group trek through the spectacular Anakie Gorge. Somehow, now hooked on the addictive high of hiking,  Wallsy has just booked us into the longest multi-multi-day walk either of us have ever done.   

Some years ago, pre-covid, Wallsy presented me with a book called ‘Walking the Coast to Coast Walk, St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay.’ Being avid fans of various walking in Britain documentaries, such as Julia Bradbury’s Canal Walks, Cornwall and Devon Walks, Wainwright Walks … you get the picture! We had often toyed with the idea of doing parts of these walks, and even had the good fortune to walk a small section of the South West Coast Path, when staying in St Ives in 2019. With all this simmering in the background and the possibility of a trip to the UK to attend events in the Lake District in 2024, we recently had a casual conversation with the birthday boy, a friend of Wallsy’s,  at a gathering for his 70^th in Bendigo. Our jaws dropped when he mentioned that he and a mate were about to book the Coast to Coast Walk for May/June next year. Unbelievably, while sipping our drinks Wallsy and I had just been discussing whether doing a section of this walk would be an option during our proposed trip in 2024.

The link was sent, the discussions were had back and forth between Alan and Wallsy, and suddenly we were booked to complete the whole 305 km walk across Britain over three weeks beginning on May 22^nd.  That certainly escalated quickly! Now our focus is on practising and getting fit enough to complete the ‘ramble’ (apparently that’s what it is called when it goes for 18+ days). We are not going to walk with our friends but expect to cross paths with them at some stage. We have no reason to rush, so we are including several rest days, enabling us to explore some of the villages we will pass through. Accommodation in real beds in real villages each night is part of the package, and our luggage will be transported for us each day, so we only have to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as we walk, hike, ramble and tramp from the West Coast, across the high fells of Lakeland, across limestone country, into the Yorkshire Dales, up onto the North Yorkshire Moors, and end our quest on the North Sea Coast.

This will be ‘leaving the road and taking the trails’ to next level.

We are accumulating a growing collection of hiking guide books.