Isn't that a wonderful word - so full of promise, and delight, and fulfilment? Walking is one of my favourite things. Along with eating, and fucking, and reading. Each has its own delights, but walking is special. Unlike most of the others, it's often best when done alone. It is good day or night, in any weather. And all you need is a pair of shoes.
I'm not talking about walking around the house, or down to the shops. Nor am I talking about walking with an agenda - like "getting fit", or "training for the City to Surf". Those LOOK a bit like the walking I'm talking about. And are important. I should be doing more of both. I'm talking here about walking to a wider horizon. Walking with no purpose, beyond just getting out into the world, walking across it, and seeing what's there to be seen.
It can be a short walk. But really, I'm thinking here of a walk of AT LEAST a few hours' duration. Preferably all day. And, most preferably, one of a few days together, dedicated to podial locomotion. For when you walk long distance, with no great agenda, or schedule, things start to happen. Your mind opens up. You start to relax. You get time to think, in an unstructured way - noticing the body's steady rhythm, the wind at your back or the sun on your arms. Seeing the various sights along the way - trees, and rocks, and soil; animals, vegetables, and minerals. Watching the landscape unfold before you, at walking pace, from ground level, is one of the most luxurious and relaxing things I can imagine.
Given that we can hold several thoughts in our minds at once, and that, at walking pace, there is time for these thoughts to ferment, mature, evolve - it's a fine opportunity to mull over the problematic items of life. When the going isn't too difficult. Moss forest, tropical karst, button grass swamp, horizontal scrub - all take their toll on progress - and need your full attention to traverse. But when there's open forest or - joy of joys - a track, a fire trail, a back-country road, the walking doesn't interfere too much with the mental journey.
And so, we plod along, in the moment, thinking deep and shallow thoughts. Building to those rewards granted the walker: the view from the top of a hill; a thirst-slaking beer at the end; the joy of a hot shower (or even, if you're lucky, a bath); and that delicious, slow descent into deep sleep that is the reward for today's effort, and the preparation for tomorrow's journey.
For a field geo, walking is part of our stock in trade. We are on our feet from the start of day one. But it's different in ways, that I'll talk about later. But, for now, just know that we walk a lot. And so, we have plenty of time to think about stuff.
After a long career as a field-based mapping geologist, my work started to spiral inwards, to become more constrained. I've walked a lot as a geo, in eastern and southern Australia, northwest Queensland, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Burma, Bangladesh. But over the last few years, with inevitable career changes, the focus has changed. I've moved from doing regional mapping, where the canvas, the area of interest, may be 100 km wide, to looking at dams. The focus is usually a hectare or two immediately around a dam wall, which may only be a hundred metres long
So, all this has led to a growing sense of claustrophobia. The need to break out, and put some kilometres under my feet.
What I'm going to do - well, that's the subject for another story. I'll tell you another day. Now - I just want to be somewhere, walking towards an open sky.
