Training day. Full backpack on. Off to the woods.
Today's weather forecast had been alternating between all day rain and a few early morning showers. As I woke up, there was no rain but the horizon looked a bit threatening.
I wanted to do a hike in Warrandyte State Park some 30km northeast of downtown Melbourne.
I decided to go.
Besides, once I'm on the Camino, I would just have to accept that I will get caught out in wet weather. Particularly in Galicia towards the Atlantic coast known for being wet.
A final selfie before heading out.
The bus ride to Warrandyte village and its adjacent State Park took almost an hour but here I am, ready to hike.
The weather started off overcast but no rain. Nobody around as soon as I left the Warrandyte village.
Soon enough though, drizzle and then light rain. Oh well. A good test of my equipment.
It is a beautiful part of outer Melbourne here. With some hills which is rare close to flat Melbourne. Not exactly like crossing the Pyrenees but at least there is something.
Good old Yarra River also flows past here.
Something did spook me though. A couple of years ago after a hike in wet conditions, I attracted leeches. One of the leech bites later contracted cellulitis. And that is not something I would like to get again. I had high fever, nausea followed by 5 days of intravenous antibiotics.
No thank you. Not 1 1/2 week before leaving for Europe.
Spoiler alert. I managed to stay leech free and yes, I did check very regularly.
I'm still all by myself and parts of Warrandyte State Park and the trail is just beautiful.
I passed the same picnic area 3 times in my attempt to get the kilometers up.
At one stage, I had a visitor.
I ate an apple at this particular break and threw away the core afterwards. The core returned almost immediately. In the mouth of this kookaburra. As far as I can tell, I think that he swallowed the leftover core whole.
The hike through Warrandyte State Park clocked up 15+km in the end. Nor a long or a particularly exhausting hike but very pleasant nevertheless.
The verdict on myself and my gear was that all was fine and acceptable except that my boots got a bit moist inside.
The Mammut Basefit boots are supposedly waterproof and Gore-Tex enhanced and I have applied waterproofing once but I will do so a few more times before I go.
I really like these boots. They are light and very comfy and have given me zero blisters so far (I hope I'm not invoking a curse here...). So I really hope that it will work out with them.
No problems with the right arm nor the right shoulder. Instead, I do occasionally get sore on top of my left shoulder but stretching and pulling back the shoulders seems to help.
Another most satisfying day in my Camino preparations.
And yes, once I got home, I went directly to the gym to exercise my ex broken arm as instructed by my Chiropractor. He suggested hitting the gym every single day to build up as much strength as possible.
One day closer to departure... I feel ready.
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