“You’re going to walk up now!” The woman is bellicose and belligerent. “Well,” she begins, clearly just warming to her theme “I hope you have plenty of water and,” her eyes scan me up and down. I’m wearing $2 K Mart shorts and a raggy tee shirt permanently smeared with bug repellent and previously worn to clean rock climbing routes. Oh, and Altras, which are zero drop running shoes, no heavy hiking boots, no gaiters, no broad brimmed hat, clearly I am an unprepared idiot at risk to myself and others. The woman’s face is red with indignation and she has more, much more to say, but I am tired of randoms asking me if I know that tides generate currents, that wind against tide creates rough conditions at sea, that because the moon is full the tide will be high, and a myriad other things that, for some reason random Australians must badger other people with.
A year or so ago, while innocently walking to my car with my weekly shopping load, some random woman accosted me and aggressively jamming her face well into my personal space demanded to know if the roof racks on my car meant that I paddled a kayak. When I admitted to this – apparently – dangerous and ludicrous folly – she followed on with a series of questions issued staccato style regarding where and when I paddled, with whom, how far, where did I launch, etc. It was a litany of inquiries from which I saw no relief and, when she found out where I normally launched my sea kayak – the little rocky cove five minutes from my house – she became even more perturbed and demanded that I immediately cease that practice as it was so dangerous that my demise, in an ugly crash was literally guaranteed.
It’s not that I do not sympathise with the desire to tell other people what to do. We all see things – or at least we think we see things – so much clearer in others than ourselves. Walking past the doughnut shop outside my local grocery store, I frequently feel compelled to shake the obese, florid and heavily immobile doughnut eaters and shout “that is not a healthy choice!” But, it is not my business, just as my walking up Mount Machar in the middle of the day is not the business of combative campground woman.
After all, it is only a 13 kilometres to walk up and down Mount Machar, all on old fire trails, albeit with scant shade, and, with just about 600 metres of elevation gain, walking to the top and back should be within the abilities of anyone who professes to be a healthy human. There is a bit of a view over the valley from the “lookout” about 100 metres above the valley, and then only sheltered glimpses through the trees until a cleared area around a radio antenna gives more open views across to Glen Rock and Mount Philp. The top itself, is broad, flat, covered with trees so, as with many bushwalks in Australia, the walk is about the journey not the destination.
Truthfully that 600 metres in the antipodean sun with no breath of wind and scant shade felt a bit of a grind, coming, as it did, a mere two days after we had finished a sea kayak trip of almost 500 kilometres of complex and complicated paddling over the last 19 days. Hubris, it appears, does not belong solely to the young. Ageing athletes have their own arrogance if they expect, as I did, to perform as normal with no recovery after what amounted to a series of 12 back to back marathon paddling events, while carrying 40 or 50 litres of water, assorted camping gear, and food for three weeks. A touch more demanding than your average marathon with aid stations every ten kilometres.
If you do enough long trips you realise that the idea that you can train for the trip while you are on the trip is foolish, and, that after a certain period of time, the SAD principle (specific adaptation to demands) no longer holds true and your physical capacity, rather than improving, begins to inexorably decline. That was definitely my position, but, random busy-bodies notwithstanding, I still made it up and down Mount Machar in about three and a half hours, which, for a beaten down old lady is a perfectly respectable time and proves that I am still a healthy human.
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