I Have Walked One Hundred Miles

by Bronwyn Jameson

Last month I blogged about my new acquisition, a treadmill desk which I hoped would be the ultimate multi-tasking, time-saving tool: working and exercising at the same time.  Huzzah.  Four weeks later I am reporting, as promised, on how that is working out.

In order to report, I've been recording my daily stat's...although I didn't realise until a couple of weeks in that the default setting is miles and not kilometres.  According to the manual, I can switch to metric but since I'd started recording miles I decided to stick with miles.  Also, the Proclaimers' song is a jaunty walking singalong in miles, not kilometres. (Sorry if the title has created Scottish ear-worms!)

So.  My report.

I've walked while working on 20 days for a total of 60-and-a-bit hours, averaging 3 hours walking per day.  Fewer hours than I would like, so I am setting a goal of getting this up to 4 hours per day during May.

The good news is that during those 60 hours, I have walked almost 335,000 steps and 106 miles.  Hence the title of this post: I really *have* walked one hundred miles (and a few more) during April.  Cool, right?

My average speed works out at 1.76 miles per hour which is quite a dawdle.  My farmer husband says even sheep walk faster than this but they're not typing while they walk, are they?  Nor are they scribbling notes and pausing to consult the thesaurus and coming up with brilliant (or not) character motivations. Anyway...

According to the treadmill, my month of dawdling has burned a total of 4,618 calories.  Let me put that in terms we all understand.

Suffice to say that 4,618 calories is quite a few slices of cheesecake or scoops of ice-cream or pastries or chocolates but actually I've been eating less of these.  Partly it's the walking, partly it's the recording of numbers, partly it's knowing how far and for how long I need to walk to make up for the cheesecake.  I've been eating less snacky foods, drinking less coffee and sleeping better. Bonus: I've  lost a satisfying two kilograms without trying too hard.

It did take most of the month to reach a level of comfort with typing while I walk.  If I had been able to work at it every day, for several sessions every day, then I'm sure this settling-in would have been quicker.  But this past week I've been able to lose myself in the work, to not realise that I'm walking, to not notice that an hour or more has passed since I last checked the clock.

Give me another month and I will have this working-while-I-walk mastered.  That is the plan.

PS:  I've become slightly addicted to the numbers, to adding them to my spreadsheet and watching them add up, so I may continue recording for a wee while longer.

New York to Tasmania

I’m very excited!  My new book – Wild For You – is now up for pre-order. The cover really captures the essence of my hero, Daniel.

Wild For You brings together Daniel, the owner of a Tasmanian wilderness walking company and Madison, a New York fashion designer. Madison has left behind her glamourous life for one week to rediscover her mojo. Little does she know that she’ll end up walking the stunning Cradle Mountain trail alone with hot hiking guide, Daniel. But what could possibly happen in those cute log cabins in the woods?

I walked the Cradle Mountain Lake St Claire wilderness trail a few years ago and it is the inspiration for this story. I walked with Cradle Mountain Huts Walks. The company has been running guided walks for over twenty-years and of course, they have huts.  Huts mean hot meals, hot showers, warm cabins and chilled wine. All this delivered by young, fit guides who take care of everything. Food tastes oh, so much better when you’ve trekked at least twelve kilometers and someone else has cooked.

Madison had to do all the things I had to including carrying her own pack. If she wanted clean clothes she had to wash them in the shower each night for which you pumped your own water.

There were so many highlights on the walk, but for me the greatest experience was climbing Tasmania’s highest peek, Mt Ossa. It stands at 1,617 metres in the middle of the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park. Making it to the top does involve a lot of scrambling over huge boulders. The view is worth it even if you are a little intimidated by the climb (will all those boulders slide further down the mountain as I climb up?!?). From the top, a quarter of Tasmania is visible and not one man-made thing (well there’s an old disused mining road to the east, but we ignored that). When Daniel and Madison climb the mountain, they are in for the unexpected.

The guides on our walk were lovely, knowledgeable and fit.  They were passionate about conservation and taught us lots of interesting ecological facts. We visited a myriad of beautiful waterfalls; explored a disused mine shaft featuring one lonely spider and lots of cave crickets (ugly little critters); held Fairy’s Aprons, sweet little purple flowers; splashed in freezing rivers and lakes; ambled through ancient rainforests and learned about the wonderful array of native fauna and flora. A number of these sites feature in the book.

Pre-order Wild for You now at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo and other e-tailers. I hope you enjoy it as I loved writing this story.

If you wanted to recharge your mojo, where would you go?

A Walk In The Park...?

By the time you read this I'll be knee deep in dubbing, loading up my backpack and crossing things off my equipment list, because tomorrow (Saturday) The Doc and I are flying down to one of my most favourite places in the world-Queenstown- in readiness for a four day (53.5km) hike into the wilderness.

Planning for this trip began just under a year ago when we decided that, instead of getting maudlin about our empty nest, we'd do something challenging and exciting together. My baby flew the nest last Saturday to start his next adventure and so tomorrow we're doing the same.

The Milford Track is dubbed as 'The finest walk in the world' and will take us tramping through fiordland, traversing waterfalls, through rainforests and wetlands. I've seen lots of amazing photos and read up as much as I can and now I can't wait!

Ready to pack!

It's a one-way walk and we have guides, so I'm confident we won't get lost, but we still have to carry reasonably heavy packs for four long days. I have 'walkers wool' and band aids for blisters, paracetamol for aches and pains and, apparently, there is wine available at the lodges we stay in along the way! What else could I need?

There is no internet anywhere on the track and no 3G service but some electricity at the lodges so I'm hoping my kindle holds out- it's locked and loaded with some fabulous books...if I have the energy to read in the evenings. One of the hardest things will be being out of contact with the 'real' world for 4 days...will be interesting to see how that feels!

The Tongariro Crossing 

We've been putting in some serious practice and I've rediscovered my love for 'the great outdoors'- something which was put to one side when the boys came along and we got busy being parents. So, hopefully, my enthusiasm will make up for any physical barriers I encounter!

(And don't be surprised if a hunky gruff walking guide appears in one of my next books!)







Wish me luck! I'll post photos here next time...oh, and apparently 90% of people doing this track get rain (which is why the waterfalls are so beautiful and the scenery so lush, I guess)- pray for sunshine!

Have you recently re-discovered a passion? Are you outdoorsy or do you prefer a cuppa and a good book?