We did a lot of walking last summer and
autumn, prepping hard for our Rhodope walking holiday. I mean, we’d always enjoyed
a little trample in the mountains around us, but last year we started to take
it really seriously.
We became far too familiar with our nearest
Decathlon store. We bought padded hiking socks, trekking poles, better rucksacks
and more. We pored over maps and plotted out longer and longer walks close to
us. We got up crazy early to squeeze in hikes before work. We skived off work in favour of afternoon hikes. We walked further and further with every passing
week. We built up to the level where we could comfortably walk 20 km without our
legs dropping off or me having an ugly-cry meltdown in the middle of nowhere.
And then we went on our walking holiday, and
it was brilliant. Then we just … stopped walking.
Since September, I can count the number of
walks we’ve done on one hand. (We’ve walked to
places, obviously. We’ve spent hours traipsing around Sofia and stuff. What I
mean is we’ve done very little walking of the lace-up-your-boots, hike-up-a-mountain,
oh-shit-we’re-lost variety.)
So what happened? Why did we hang up our
boots?
We pondered this yesterday as we went on our
first serious walk of the year: a very muddy 12 km walk over a (small) mountain to
the Heavenly Pastures nature park. Did we stop walking because the Rhodope
scenery was so dramatic that it made our local walks seem a bit … disappointing?
Maybe in our heads that was it. But yesterday we were reminded of how very
lovely our mountains are, and how very lucky we are to live here.
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| This cow, horse and truck were the first signs of life in 6 km. |
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| So, so, muddy. |
When we finally got there, it being
February, the nature park wasn’t at its prettiest. But, with all the bare trees and stone, it
had a slightly eerie druid vibe (or maybe it was Bulgarian Blair Witch Project)
that I really enjoyed. We had the whole place to ourselves, so it was like
being in our own private horror movie. You know, in a good way.
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| Rob checking out the ritual sacrifice arena. I mean, stone maze. |
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| 'The door in the forest.' By this point, we thought we'd mistakenly wandered into a German art film. Obviously, I loved it. |
Anyway, the upshot of this tale is the boots
are back in action. They need a damn good clean, but they’re back in action.
