Part 3: When the Planning of the Doing of it Still Takes Longer than the Doing
of the Doing of it.
Walking. Yeah, I know about that. I’ve done it before. Even since the Coast
to Coast I’ve walked from time to time. I even did a little before breakfast
today. However, in the week leading up to the Big Walk, as I’m going to call
mine and Dave’s Coast to Coast walk from now on, I decided to put my walking
into practice by walking a bit further than I usually would. The first walk
involved a Mr. Marc-e-b and a Mr. Mike Todd, and we walked from New Milton to
Brockenhurst, taking an unneeded and tiring detour on the way back, to the tune
of 20 miles. We finished at the Kebab House, in an attempt to undo all the
health we can accumulated, whereupon I bought a massive doner kebab I called my
mum to come pick me up.
The combination of walking and kebab caused very different pains in very
different places, but provided a good test for the Big Walk. With the promise of
averaging 15 miles a day, it seemed very doable. Even better, as we all
noticed, the next day the muscles were positively fresh and only the lingering
heaviness of doner meat remained. Eat healthy, walk healthy, I promised myself.
Mike and I also walked the coast from New Milton to Lymington. It pelted
with rain, providing a good test for my bag and coat (which were not adequately
protected) and took us past the wonderful low marshlands which sit beside the Solent.
On this occasion, we set something of a precedent: after a quick and mighty
start, we stopped off for a coffee, feeling very good about ourselves and sure
to plod on gallantly to the finish line. Sadly, we were only about 10% of the
way through and we’d already had our break. When you reach the 12 mile mark or
thereabouts, you can’t help but curse the fool you were when you breaked so
early.
In Lymington we went into the camping and hiking store Millets where I
bought a few items: a tiny torch which you can wrap around your head,
waterproof trousers, a tiny pillow and tiny ‘quickdry’ towel, and first aid
items. Dave was going to sort out eating equipment.
“Gonna need that if it’s a day like this,” said the Millets Man. He’d
cleverly made the connection between the waterproof trousers and the deepening
rainstorm outside. “You couldn’t be more right,” I said. “We’re walking back to
New Milton.”
“You’re what?” he said, astonished. Unlike you, reader, this Millets Man of
Lymington knew exactly where New Milton was, for New Milton is Lymington’s
scummier, unruly brother. Whereas Lymington is the proud home of the likes of
teenage piano cover queen Birdy, New Milton is the proud home of machete-wielding
townies. A few years ago, I came back from living in South East London, with
all its gangs and big-city perils, only to find myself in a pub brawl outside
New Milton’s Rydal. Millets Man thus he knew that it was some distance, and was
surely wondering why anyone would go to New Milton, even on a sunny day, even
in a car. “You’re walking to New Milton, like, now?”
“We’ve just come from New Milton,” said Mike, evidently feeling a bit
manly. “Gotta get back somehow.”
“Blimey,” he said. For a man who worked in a hiking and camping shop, he
was surprisingly surprised to come across walkers. His astonishment only
deepened when I told him I was going to walk the Coast to Coast. I had
suspicions that this man was not a real walker at all, but simply a mere
retailer.
I had bought a tent, also from Millets, but online. It turned out, later (when
emailing them from a pub as my ripped tent dripped rain in the garden) that I
hadn’t bought it from Millets, but from Millet
Sports. The latter is a sports store, also trading in Millets-type
equipment, but at a lower quality if the frozen moisture in my nostrils was
anything to go by.
After these walks I felt positively sturdy, somewhere between Conan the
Barbarian and a gorilla. I had some Keen hiking boots which I had spent hours
deliberating over, reading reviews and whatnot, before buying them from Taobao.
Taobao is China’s Ebay, and a haven of cheap shit. It was a risk, but my Keens
were great! And they continue to be so. With all my stuff stuffed into a
smallish Oakley backpack bought from the Fake Market in Shanghai, I was ready
to go.
Take me to Part 4
Take me to Part 4
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