Onward we walk . . .

Week of 23 October 2023

How do the weeks go so quickly?

Thursday was Hobart Show Day. I know some people have a bit of a whinge about having a public holiday on a Thursday so it’s not really a long weekend unless you also take the Friday off, but any day off work is a good day for me. And an added bonus is that half the office does take the Friday off to get a long weekend, so hardly anyone is there and it’s quiet!

Yay!

It does, however, pay to check the Friday bus timetable rather than the Monday-Thursday timetable, when I go into the office on Friday.

I discovered too late that the bus I thought I was going to catch home doesn’t run on Fridays and, as the bus following that had already been removed as part of the Temporary Service Adjustment (their capital letters, not mine), I would have had to wait an hour for the next one.

And this is how I found myself on a random bus tour of Sandy Bay that eventually got me to Lower Sandy Bay, from where my young human L-plater could take me home.

Finding myself on the Point to Pinnacle course

I was close to town on Saturday and decided to walk some of the Point to Pinnacle course from Davey Street. I did a quick check on Google Maps, which told me I’d started about 2.6 km from the start of the course.

If everything went well, I aimed to walk to Fern Tree, which is the end point of the Point To Pub event, so just under half-way through the whole course. I did that walk last time I was preparing for this event and I don’t recommend it as an enjoyable walk. Once the footpath ends, there’s not a lot of room to walk on the side of the road, and why does every car from Fern Tree need to be on that road at that time of the morning?

However, it confirmed my memory that there’s one steep section at the top end of Davey Street and the rest of the walk isn’t too strenuous.

And with every gap in the trees, kunanyi gets closer and you realise that you get there quite quickly.

It is beautiful, and I was so happy to see a small flock of ravens flying round in the sky against that glorious mountain background.

I was hoping my foot wasn’t going to hurt but it did. I blamed the shoes I was wearing, which weren’t my normal shoes.

As always, this stopped as soon as I stopped walking. Good.

Since I’d conveniently arrived in Fern Tree shortly before the bus back to town, I decided to take the easy way back home. It was an interesting bus route that took me to streets I didn’t even know existed let alone had been to before, so yay, adventure!

All up, I walked just over seven km, or about a third of the course distance.

Even though my foot gave me trouble, I truly believe I’m fit enough to walk the full distance. Whether my foot will last the distance is another matter altogether.

Training tracker week 9

• Monday (2 km): 2.32 km
• Tuesday (3 km): 3.37 km
• Wednesday (6 km): 6.64 km
• Thursday (2 km): 2.64 km
• Friday (2 km): 2.36 km
• Saturday (3 km): 7.45 km
• Sunday (10 km): 11.48 km

Week 43 summary

What was the best thing about this week?

The Show Day holiday. Even if it was on a Thursday and I went to work on Friday. A day off is a day off.

What did I notice this week?

Or, what didn’t I notice. That would be the wave that I was so intently photographing that I didn’t see it wash up completely over me.

We had a lot of rain and bad weather this week so the tide was high and the waves were wonderful.

I did notice new flax stalks growing here.

I think it’s flax.

What did I learn this week?

I learned a “factorial” is the number you get when you multiply a number with all the numbers that are smaller than it. It’s represented by an exclamation mark. So 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120.

What I’m reading this week

• Bullshit Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What We Can Do About It by David Graeber
• Judy Garland Beyond the Rainbow by Sheridan Morley and Ruth Leon
• Do Story: How to tell your story so the world listens by Bobette Buster
• What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles
• CUSP: James Henry Esmond Dorney Architect by Paddy Dorney