A learning curve

Unsurprisingly an adventure such as this necessitates a major learning curve - especially when I'd never attempted any kind of journey like before. I was in a new country, I had never used my tent before, I had never hiked for more than 5 consecutive days. I had never walked more than 20km in a day. I learned many things in my travels - about long distance hiking in general, and about myself, so I thought I'd share a few revelations:

- Walking for 8 hours is not the same as working for 8 hours. I thought when I started this that I could easily walk 30km in a day, at a 4km per hour pace, as that would be less than a days work - oh how wrong I was.

- Nothing will stop the hailstorm from hitting you, but waterproofs work better on than in your pack.

- The tent does in fact survive being packed soaking wet. However, the tent does not appreciate being packed with an orange left in its side pocket. Packed and compressed.

- Music is effective pain relief. Especially in those first couple of weeks, where the walking was not hard but my blistered feet were limiting my endurance, I found plugging in my headphones could get me an extra couple of hours.

- Shoes. Buy good ones.

- Apparently I am a grump in the morning, and annoyingly cheerful after lunch.

- Something about hiking makes it easy for conversation to get very personal, very quickly. There just seems to be no point making bland small talk, at least once you've all finished the standard comments on the worst part of today's track, and the weather. There are people I've hiked with for less than a week who know more about me than people I've known for years.

- When crossing paths with another walker on a horrible rainy day, it is compulsory to loudly and cheerfully exclaim "Beautiful weather we're having!" or "Lovely day for it!"

- Ask and you shall receive. Want an extra bit of bread with your soup? Ask. Hanging out for a cup of tea? Ask. Need somewhere to camp? Ask. (Actually don't bother asking for that one in Scotland, you're allowed). This doesn't mean you will always receive. I've been told no, or been ignored, or had to awkwardly repeat myself because my accent was unclear - but I survived these embarrassments. You can too.

- It's really hard to dance with a 13kg pack on, but that didn't stop me

- Bad weather does not equal bad hiking! I have had beautiful, exciting days, seemingly made all the better for lashing wind and rain. I've had lovely sunny days that dragged painfully.

- Mushroom cup-of-soup mixed into pasta with a handful of cheese makes an excellent meal. Bonus points if the cheese is a mature smoked cheddar.

- There is always something that can make me smile at the end of a hard day, if I look for it. Flowers, a flight of swallows, thousands of tiny  downy seeds adrift on the breeze and glowing in the sunlight. My own foolish train of thought. I can only hope that everyone can find a little something to smile about.

- Perceptions change with experience. Never before had I uttered the phrase "Well we're only going 22km, so it's a short day"

- People aren't ALWAYS going to be impressed that you're walking a stupidly long distance. Sometimes it's because they're undertaking something similarly impressive. Often it's because they just didn't compute the sentence "well I've walked form London"

- I can tell myself that this was a journey of personal challenge, and that I don't need other people's accolades to validate my worth, all I like but it's still nice to get a properly stunned response to the aforementioned statement.

After all of this:
The most important lesson I learned was that I can set myself a goal and complete it. Even though I had no idea if it would work before I started, and even though some days I had to walk through pain, and even though some days I had no motivation.
I am a self-doubter. I thought I had no will power.  I thought I was too lazy.
But I did this. You can too.

Each day as it comes.
Hour by hour.
One step at a time.

Not all those who wander are lost.