An Hour's Walk

... sunlight streaks through the trees ...

There are plenty of trails for the use and enjoyment of all.

Rebecca and I usually just walk Pilling’s Road from Glen’s house to Bernie Road and then back again.

Three stretches of that and I can get in about 4,500 steps.

"Have you taken the new route behind David and Shauna's house yet?"

... the railroad is only a stone's throw away ...

Hearing no, I took my walking sticks and off we strode.

“This is not a good path for conversation,” she said.

She is right.

Nothing about the walk is good for conversation.

The Grandfather’s Path is a trail for one person, if that.

I occasionally trip on a rock I have missed, or get my foot caught by falling ferns and I haven’t taken that trail enough times to know were to cut off and strike up the hill.

I have missed that turn two times in a row now.

I can tell when I have gone too far and I know how to double back, but it is a bit embarrassing to be the leader on the path and miss the turn.

The first bit of the climb is steep and there are some natural stairs built into the hill.

“Look, the cedars are doing their work of providing stairs for us,”

Rebecca said as we climbed along the roots that were there to help in the ascent.

“Not a good trail for conversation,” she gasped at another point. “Only if you have a very strong diaphragm and can shout your words ahead so that I can hear them,”

I replied. “It is all I can do to keep these walking sticks propping me up so that I am always in a vertical position. No talking from me.”

Rebecca describes the walk better than I in her personal blog if you have time for a longer read.

Just as a matter of pure fact, the loop of the walk takes less than an hour and that includes missing the first turn, stopping to take pictures of the stream, descending to a small waterfall feature that David has added to the stream, pausing to listen to a bird sound that was new to us (the sound of two hollow sticks clicked together twice) and visiting with new loved ones who have just arrived on the property.

Arta