Sandi and I are
78 hours from flying out to Western Australia and the start of a 1,000 km walk from Perth to Albany. The Bibbulmun Track is well known, and getting more so; I'm not sure how we came across it now, but it feels like we've been working toward this point for about a year.
We've been in active planning for the last 6 months, and actively training for the last 4 weeks, and at the moment I'm at fever pitch and hardly able to control myself with the excitement (or is it nerves?).
Anyway, we'll be gone for just over 2 months and completely out of communication (to tell the truth, the planning and training has been so intense that I feel that I've not been on the same planet this year: I haven't kept up with NANY at all, and don't even get to read my feeds properly, all my little projects are lying at the bottom of the hard drive...). Actually,
we will be communicating: we carry a
SPOT Messenger that acts both as a EPIRB and a satellite messenger, so we'll be communicating our current location -- this will be displayed on our site:
mitupela.net/gnw/bibbulmun.html, as well as FaceBook and Twitter (
if you're interested).
It's at this point you stop and ask yourself "Why the hell are we taking leave without pay to spend two months walking 1,000 km in Western Australia's sun, wind and rain?" The answer is complex, and simple: We both enjoy getting away, into the Australian bush, by ourselves and our God. The solitude and isolation that blooms into a deep belonging and closeness feeds both us and our relationship. The simplicity of reducing your day to putting one foot in front of the other generates a buoyancy in our spirits.
Of course, putting your foot in front of the other 1.3 million times is something we've not done before in one go
so it'll be interesting to see what lies in the unknown beyond our previous boundaries.
All the best for the next two months whilst we're away!
