looking ahead a little

Today is 3 January.  In three months I will be in the major French city of Lyon.  And a few days later I will take a train to my start point of Le Puy-en-Velay (Le Puy) in the Auvergne (and Massif Central) region of France.

How to fill in the time.  More one-day and multi-day trips.  Scanning the necessary parts of guide books I've purchased and onto my tablet (for personal use only) .  Reading the blogs of other, mainly for the photos.  Continuing the health checks (OK so far) and getting whatever jabs are suggested.  Arranging visits to family and friends for March while on the way to Auckland to fly out.  Getting new shoes and orthotics.  Tidy up the apartment, especially getting rid of paper, redundant clothes, bedding, towels and "incidentals".  About 10 weeks before I leave home.

I'm getting a bit nervous.

Trial multi-day trip

In December 2015 I did a multi-day trip from home to Featherston and then Woodville to Ashhurst, all on walking tracks except for roads through Maymorn and from Cross Creek.  Reached 400 m above sea level on three of my four days.  The main purpose of this trip was to discover what I really didn't need.  Decided extra socks and underpants weren't needed and simplified my tops to 1 long sleeve merino and two short sleeve (one of which I wear).  Also ditched outer cotton gloves and my water bladder.  I now have a long tube with a mouthpiece at one end fitted through the top of a 1.5 litre PET bottle.  This is a lot lighter, water level is more visible and is easier to top up en chemin.  And I've decided to ditch the keyboard to my tablet, having not used it once on my multi-day trip. Having a separate keyboard has been an article of faith for me for four years, so this is a big decision in some ways.

My pack now weighs about 6.5 kg including, tablet, water and some food.  But not including the tent.

For the trip itself there were several highlights.

• Getting underway no later than 6h30 each morning (sunrise is about 06h00)
• Most of the 90 km was off road
• Getting to Cross Creek Station on the Rimutaka Incline
• Going over Manawatu Gorge walkway
• Getting to 400 m above sea level on three of the four days

2016 begins

My stats for the past four years training are informative, to me anyway.
2012 -    863 km - 34 trips - 25 km avg - 4.8 km/hr
2013 -    462 km - 27 trips - 17 km avg - 5.4 km/hr - pain in right little toe - fixed Nov 13
2014 -    548 km - 36 trips - 15 km avg - 5.6 km/hr
2015 - 1,285 km - 54 trips - 24 km avg - 5.7 km/hr

New shoes and a new orthotic mid 2015.  Used walking sandals once - too many stones under my foot!


Highlights of my training included:
Some 25 trips (out of 151) over 30 km.  If I did not have to get home by public transport from my stopping point before a self imposed deadline of 4 pm I may have been able to do more long trips.
Being able to recently walk for four hours at a good pace without only pee stops.
Having the time to trial a variety of equipment that has to travel with me from Aotearoa New Zealand to the antipodes, to last for nearly six months and to travel on foot for more than 2000 km.