Es ist vorbei

Auch mein Dank geht an Alle die uns auf unserer Reise unterstuetzt haben. Eure ‘hits’, Kommentare und E-mails haben uns immer gerade zum richtigen Zeitpunkt erreicht, genau dann wenn wir es gebraucht haben.

Die letzten zwei Tage seit dem wir daheim angekommen sind, sind etwas verwischt. Gary und ich hatten Schwierigkeiten gerade zu denken und vollstaendige Saetze herauszubringen war auch nicht einfach. Heute ist alles etwas besser und wir scheinen uns zu erholen.

Ich bin sehr dankbar das Gary und ich diese Reise zusammen so solide ueberstanden haben. Wir sind noch verheiratet, reden immer noch miteinander und hatten auch in der letzten Woche noch Gespraechsstoff beim Abendessen. Es hat sich gut abgewechselt wer schneller laufen konnte und weniger Schmerzen hatte und die Person hat dann auf den anderen aufgepasst. Unser Code ‘Wie geht es dir aus 10’ hat bis (fast) zum Schluss gut geklappt. 1 ist ‘mir geht es super und nix tut weh’ und 10 ist ‘ich kann keinen einzigen Schritt mehr laufen, es tut sehr weh’.

Unser Rythmus hat einfach gut zusammengepasst und Gary hat es immer geschafft mich aufzuheitern wenn mal alles nicht so lustig schien. Am meisten hat geholfen das wir beide sehr hartnaeckige Menschen sind und nicht leicht aufgeben – wer ist schon so verrueckt am letzten Tag noch einen Marathon hinzulegen nur um im eigenen Bett schlafen zu koennen?! (Ich bin mir uebrigens ziemlich sicher das Gary am letzten Tag beim Code geschummelt hat – ihm hat sein Schienbein wesentlich mehr Probleme bereitet als er zugeben wollte)

Ich will ich noch ueber ein paar (ueberraschende) Gegenstaende schreiben die sich als unerlaesslich herausgestellt haben waehrend unserer Reise aber dann scheint unser Blog komplett zu sein – irgendwie Schade weil wir so gerne unseren Zaehler angeschaut haben um zu sehen wieviele hits wir hatten und ob jemand einen Kommentar hinterlassen hatte. Wir haben uns einfach verbunden gefuehlt.

It is over

My thanks to everybody who supported us on this journey. Your hits on our blog, comments and e-mails always came at the right time, just when we needed a boost.

The last two days since we have arrived home have been a bit of a blur. Gary and I have had difficulties to think straight and even forming whole sentences has been a challenge.Today everything is much easier and we seem to be recovering.

I am so grateful that Gary and I have survived this journey together. We are still married, still talk to each other and even during the last week we had stuff to chat about over dinner. We took turns in who could walk faster and was in less pain and that person simply looked after the other. Our code of ‘How are you out of 10’ worked well until (nearly) the end. 1 is ‘I am feeling great, nothing is hurting’ and 10 is ‘I can not walk another step, I am really hurting badly’

We had the same rhythm and Gary always managed to cheer me up when I needed it. What helped us most was that we are persistent people and tend not to give up easily – who else would be mad enough to walk a marathon on the last day only to be able to sleep in ones own bed. (I am pretty sure that Gary was not totally honest with his code response during the last day. I am certain his shin gave him much more trouble than he admitted)

There are a couple of (surprising) items I would like to write about which turned to be essential for the success of our journey. But after that it seems that our blog is complete. I am really sad about that at the moment – we loved to check our page counter in the evenings when we had an internet connection to see how many hits we had on our blog and who left a message. It was nice to know we were connected to home.

Thank you

Late on Tuesday I bashed out a quick entry to tell everyone that we were home. My intention was to write something more substantial the following day. But whatever had kept us going for the previous 39 days ran out and yesterday we just did not feel capable of doing anything that required energy or clarity of thought.

On our walking days, we always had a target location to walk to. It was rarely an easy target and when we reached it, we generally felt that we could not walk another step. Manageable aches and pains and general tiredness all seemed to increase with proximity to our destination. Such seems to be the psychology of achieving difficult goals.

Reaching our ultimate goal seems to have had the same effect, increased by an order or two of magnitude. Whilst the journey was a wonderful and fun experience, getting up day after day at 7:30, excepting the 3 rest days, knowing that one is going to face a physical challenge, eventually takes its toll.

I had thought that I would want to write some reflections on the journey but, right now, I just feel like saying: “Yeah, we did it” and thanking you all for your support. So I think I will leave it there, at least for now, and simply close out with the final musical choices.

We didn't post a choice for our penultimate day but I can do so now. Jackson Browne makes another appearance with “Running on Empty” which is exactly how we felt.

For our final day, there are lots of contenders, not least Les's excellent suggestion. The theme from Mission Impossible comes to mind, as does “We Are the Champions” by Queen or a reprise of the overall theme of “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley.

But I have gone for something I really love, the celebratory and energetic: “Hey Ya!” by Outkast - here is the link to that wonderful video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAB7yGQsYks

Thanks again to everyone who encouraged and supported us. And if you didn't donate to our charity then it isn't too late to do so here: http://www.justgiving.com/walkingtobavaria

By the way, I am sure Doris will also want to post and I will leave it to her to make any additional music choices.

Day 39 – 44 km walked – Total of 842 km walked – Home

A short entry for the time being to say that we are home - we'll do fuller update tomorrow when we begin our recovery. Do we need it - hell yes we do.

The closer we got to home, the more difficult it became to stop walking and find somewhere to sleep - the desire to get home was just too strong and we ended up walking 44 Km. The imperially inclined can do the maths and find that it is just over a standard marathon - with 13 Kg rucksucks of course.

"Do you think you can walk another 10Km or so, with that pain?"

"I can try".

We started at 9 am this morning and got home around 9:30 pm this evening. We are tired, in good spirits and our feet hurt. A few beers and a little wine has been consumed but now it is time for bed.

Thank you to you all for your support.

Musical choices and reflection to follow

Day 38 – 25 km walked – Total of 798 km walked – Lenham

After yesterday's very hilly walk, we woke up a little stiffer than we were used to in Belgium. All in a days work for a walker not to look like an old age pensioner when getting up from breakfast. Breakfast needs a special mention today. After 36 days of Continental breakfasts with endless reams of bread rolls, ham and cheese and yesterday's said B&B which did not instill enough confidence in us to go for the full Monty (wise decision as we ended up with hard boiled poached eggs on toast) we went for it today. Lovely sausage and Internet connection, what else does a girl need in the morning :)

A special prize goes to Dem who was the only reader who spotted Gary's deliberate mistake of mixing up the North Downs with the South Downs. Just checking that you are all paying attention! Either nobody else is reading or you are not PAYING ATTENTION!!

To be truthful – we sometimes find it difficult to make the verbal difference between East and West. Yes, yes, we know we are walking west, north west, south west – probably a combination thereof throughout every day. East is the devils work and if we are heading there we are going the wrong way (like today for a couple of miles, but lets brush over that). However, what comes out of our mouths is quite different. 'Are we going in the right direction?' I ask my co-navigator and Gary gets his compass out.. 'Yes', he says after consulting it, we are heading South-East. 'Oh good' I say, then we should be reaching the Cherry soon, to cross the Channel and todays musical choice should be the 'Tie of the Iger'. I personally am now at the point where I feel I do have a high IQ by just remembering which week day it is and what country we are in.

Gary has only recently come into the interesting feelings that are created when a toe or two go numb. I have had the pleasure since the beginning of the walk on my left foot's big toe (which is actually the middle toe on that foot). The blood flow comes and goes........... ouchhh. A couple of days ago Gary started complaining that his sock kept getting stuck between his toes. On further investigation it was the same thing – numb toe. Wiggle at your own risk!

Today's walk was less hilly but equally pleasant. Not very many cars and certainly no brightly clad bicycle riders whistling past us. I have to get something of my chest about Lycra here: Guys, if Lycra gets stretched too much it becomes see-through. So, if you are wearing 'nada' beneath your Lycra cycling shorts and they have been stretched too much, lookers-on get way more information than when looking at, say, a builders crack.

Another pleasant feature of today's walk was that the Pilgrims way and the North Downs way have joined. My thoughts kept wandering to those people who walked this ancient route over the centuries. What are your hopes? Which body parts are hurting? Why the hell are you doing this???

Day 37 – 26 Km walked today – 773 Km walked in total - Wye

I'm really proud of us today. Despite being on the way home, we were at a low relatively low ebb yesterday evening. In part, this was because we lost our rythtmn but perhaps more because we had come so far but some old physical concerns made us doubt whether we could finish it off.

But today was a new day and we walked 26Km up hill, down hill, up hill...and so on. It felt more like 30Km and was certainly more strenuous than that distance in the flatness of Belgium. And the scenery was wonderful.

We started out, as we ended yesterday, on the South Downs Way and what a contrast to Belgium. I will not day that we didn't notice the hills but we certainly didn't mind them, given the rewards. But after lunch, a minor wrong turn found us on the Pilgrim's Way. These days, the South Downs Way is better for walkers, as the a lot of the Pilgrim's Way is tarmac. But on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the tarmac was quiet and it was a special feeling to walk where so many feet had walked before.

To escape the tarmac for a while, we took a footpath that runs parallel to the road. It ran through a number of fields and it became clear, after the second, field, that the owner was not very keen on having people follow this ancient right of way. Signs went missing or were overgrown and styles were precarious. This came to its nadir in the final field which increasingly became nothing more than a field of thigh high stinging nettles. I was wearing shorts but we, now militant ramblers, were determined to get to the end. Four hours later, my legs are still tingling like mad.

Shortly after, we sat on a bench, dialed 118 118, which worked pretty well yesterday, to find some comfortable accommodation in Wye. It was a nasty shock to be told that there wasn't any and that we would have to go to Ashford. And then along came the lovely lady below, who happened to be passing by.

Not only did she tell us that there were indeed places in Wye, she walked with us into Wye, and showed us to the very the door of the place we are now staying. But she also waited outside, to ensure that we had a room, so that she could show us to somewhere else if they were full. I gave her the thumbs up and took the picture above. But her generosity didn't end there. When we came back to the dining room, we found that she had returned and left us an envelope containing a generous donation to our charity. What can we say but thank you.

So finally, to our musical choice. Having spent this afternoon on the Pilgrim's Way, I was going to choose the old hymn, “To be a Pilgrim”, with words by John Bunyan, which I have been singing on and off for weeks.

But I have also been looking for an excuse to include something by the late and very great Robert Nesta Marley. So in recognition of our assertion of our right to ramble, it is the great man and “Get Up, Stand Up (Stand Up For Your Rights)”.

Day 36 – 14 Km walked today – 747 Km walked in total (need to check) – Folkestone

This was an odd sort of day. We started it in the beautiful city of Bruges and ended it in a bottom of the range Bed and Breakfast in Folkestone, sitting in our tiny room, eating takeaway Chinese food from a carton with a plastic fork.

In between we had very mixed emotions. Forced to take more public transport than we would have liked, we were keen to walk. But somehow, the day of rest plus the non-walking transport, got us out of our rhythm. Nonetheless, we were determined and started walking pretty late in the day by recent standards – 3pm.

And the walk was a real, welcome back to England wake-up call, after the flatness of Belgium. We climbed and climbed until we reached the top of the famous white cliffs. After that, we enjoyed a glorious, but hilly, walk along the coast to Folkestone, when our stamina ran out around 7pm and we started to hurt badly in old and new places.

So it was any port in a storm...but preferably Folkestone.

But it was good to be back in England and on our way home, so today's musical choice is Paul Simon and “Homeward Bound”.

Adjustment

There are a number of reasons why we chose the slightly longer route via Ostend, rather than drop down to Calais. Two of those reasons were Leuven and Bruges. A decision that seemed to be completely vindicated by our thoroughly enjoyable stays in each place. Tomorrow, went our perfect plan, we would walk our last 20 Kilometres in Belgium, take the ferry from Ostend and begin our walk up the North Downs Way from Dover.

Unfortunately, however, it turns out that the fast ferry from Ostend to Dover is no more. Actually, we knew this yesterday but were unfazed because there is a ferry to Ramsgate. Our only decision then, was whether to walk from Ramsgate, probably via Canterbury, or whether to get a train to Dover and stick to the original route. But when we looked at booking today, it turns out that although the Ferry takes car and motorbike passengers, it does not take foot passengers.

At first, I thought this was quite funny but as the evening progressed, I became more and more pissed off at myself for not having sorted it out in advance. But then that had not been the spirit of the journey which was, essentially, not to plan more than a day ahead – although it could well be argued that this was somewhat different.

Well, there is always Zeebrugge, I thought, which is even closer to Bruges than Ostend. But nowadays, it turns out, ferries from Zeebruge, only go to Hull! It seems that the intense ferry competition had already closed down our options but did we know it. Even services from Dunkirk look pretty limited these days.

So what to do? A tempting option was and is to get on a train back to Brussels and use my mountain of Eurostar points to travel all of the way home in Business Class – we have walked over 700 Km, we deserve to finish with a little luxury, goes this argument. Another option is to walk to Calais, adding something like another 5 days to our journey, despite our various and many aches and pains. But to be frank we are physically and mentally tired, prepared now only for a last push from Dover to home.

We have, therefore, gone for a compromise. We will make an “adjustment”. Tomorrow we will get a train and make the short trip down the coast to Calais and get a Ferry to Dover. We will imagine that we have stepped back, briefly, in time, to when the Hoverspeed used to glide serenely out of Ostend harbour before powering its way to Dover. It will be as if the the “adjustment” had never happened. It will be a little secret, just between me and Doris.

It is tempting to pick David Bowie and “Changes” for today's musical choice but in the spirit of todays' adjustment, and pretending that we are still going from Ostend, today's choice is Marvin Gaye and “Sexual Healing”. A delicious, goose-pimple inducing song, from the album Midnight Love, recorded while Marvin was living, improbable as that sounds, in Ostend – strange but true.

Before I go, Doris says that I should mention that, I am posting this while seated on the toilet – wait don't run away, thinking that noxious odours can be transmitted through cyberspace – it is not what it seems. It is just that it is the only place in our hotel room that we can get a decent wi-fi signal. I am seating comfortably (everything is relative) on a cushion. But hang on, now that I am here....better sign off.