The daily wonder, insights, challenges and photos of my journey from Rome to Canterbury on foot
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Today was my best walking day yet. I've discovered my secret for good walking; leave early, allow extra time, let your body find its own rhythm and take regular breaks.
It was a long day. I left my hotel at 7.15am and arrived at my Chambre d'Hotes at 6pm but I have spent at least an hour lying in the sun. My feet did well today. No new blisters. No new pain.
Read MoreThe house below (see photo) is what I will now think of as the House of Horror. I think it looks a little sinister with the two deer heads stuck on it as decoration. In reality is the Hebergement Pelerine in Brienne-le-Chateau, a house provided by the town for pilgrims to stay for a small fee. Except, it appears, when there is a big festival on in town and they will let anyone stay there.
Read MoreWhen I am walking, I regularly pause to look back at the path I have walked. Thirty minutes ago I was all the way back there and now I am all the over here. I can visualise myself back at the crest of that hill, tired and aching wondering how much longer it will take me to arrive. Sometimes its a miracle. Sometimes its a victory. Always its incredible.
Read MoreI am now in Brienne-le-Chateau. Since I last posted, I have walked from Reims to Conde-sur-Marne to Chalons-en-Champagne to le-Meix-Tiercelin to here and have clocked more than 500 kilometres. I have written individual blog posts for each day but haven't posted them as I have been staying in places that don't have internet connection; a gite, a youth hostel, a home for people with disabilities and now here in this hebergement pelerins where I have a room with two hospital beds and a mattress on the floor. My life is stripped down to the bare necessities; shelter, food and some clothes on my back.
Read MoreToday I said good bye to Tent. The weather is too cold for camping, it is dropping to around 6 degrees at night. I have been carrying Tent as an emergency accommodation option. Although I used her in Guines where I camped for free, I quite possibly could have been accommodated in a chalet (read cabin in English) if I had asked.
Read MoreHe leadeth me beside the still waters (Psalm 23).
I leadeth me beside the busy highways during peak hour (Kym mistake # 23).
If I followed the guidebook's suggestion, I would have walked 40 kilometres today. 24 kilometres to Hermonville and then 16 kilometres to Reims through farms and woodlands and vineyards and I am sure it would have been lovely but I really wanted to make it to Reims today in less than 40 kilometres.
Read MoreNo rain today and a lot of road walking which means dry boots and happy feet despite the pain and one new blister.
This morning after breakfast, I walked up to the old town to visit the cathedral and walk around one last time before leaving. I discovered upon returning to my hotel, packing the final things into The Devil and putting the Red Beasts on my feet that I had to walk up and over the old town to get to the other side and in the direction of Corbeny. Laon is on a hilltop. Up and down is the equivalent of 32 floors. I did it twice, once with the The Devil and once without.
Read MoreI woke up this morning to grey light filtering in between the gap in the curtains. Without getting out of bed to even look at the sky, I checked the weather forecast on my phone; 90% chance of rain from 8am, 70% chance it would still be raining in the afternoon. I got out of bed and looked out my window. It was already raining lightly. I glanced at my hiking boots. I could tell by the darkness of the red that they were still wet but inspected them anyway. Outside. Wet. Inside. Wet. Great. I was going to be walking in the rain all day wearing wet boots that would get even wetter. I wanted to cry. I felt tired tears pooling behind my eyes. But then I wanted to laugh because somehow at the same time the situation seemed ridiculously funny.
Read MoreI left Trefcon this morning at 7.45am on quiet country roads surrounded by fog.
In the bushes and trees and fences lining the road into Etraillers were decorated with the pretty lacework of perfect spiderwebs wearing pearls of dew.
It was another long day of walking, 34.5 kilometres today and most of it in the rain. Unable to find my usual lunch eating venue, a bus stop, I spotted some kind of metal cabinet on a nature strip nestled between two shrubs that made the perfect bench and that is where I sat and ate my sandwich and apple as the rain continued to tumble down.
Read MoreAfter the rain comes sun. And after the rain comes a whole lot of mud and I spent a large part of today's walk either dodging it or trudging through it carefully so as not to slip and fall. But where there is mud and lake-sized puddles there are other wonders to be found; giant snails quietly glide between blades of grass, tiny brown frogs leap and dive beneath the puddles surface disappearing into the muddy spume and the giant orange slugs slither along the mud.
Read MoreKym Wilson is an Australian writer, coach and pilgrim. In late 2013, she walked 2,022 kilometres alone along the Via Francigena pilgrimage trail from Canterbury to Rome seeking inner wisdom and healing.
