Falling behind

At the beginning of the little 30 posts in 30 days challenge, I said I was only going to blog on workdays. So, the fact that it is the 16th and this is my 14th post is actually better than I expected I would be able to do.

However, I do suspect I am about to fall by the wayside.

Today is the last school day of the term, tomorrow and Friday will be professional development days (which with luck will give me something good to write about), but then on Saturday morning I load the kids in the car along with our rucksacks and drive 1500km to the Larapinta Trail and spend a few days walking.

For my youngest, this will be his first overnight hike. Although he has been a bushwalker for as long as he can walk. I recall, when he was about 3, a well meaning gent saw him walking with me at Kings Canyon. By well meaning, I mean nosy blowhard. He was shocked that I had this little 3 year old with me (and he has always been small for his age) and came over to talk to me about how foolish I would be if I thought about taking him on the rim walk (about 6 km, with a fair bit of up and down). I smiled, and reassured him we were just doing the shorter walk along the flat. Then (because I am that sort of guy) I added, "because we did the rim walk yesterday" In fact, we had done the 6km plus a couple of side trips and the 3 year old boy had happily run ahead and found each track marker for us. That was his usual method for many years, he would wait for the group at the next track marker or the next fork in the path.

Actually, while I am writing non-library stuff, I may add another amusing Kings Canyon anecdote. I took my mother to see the canyon a few years ago. My eldest would have been about 9 and she did the rim walk in a pair of strappy sandals because she had left her bag in Alice Springs and we didn't realise until we got to Hermensberg, at which point I was not turning back. We looked for a pair of sneakers at the Hermensberg shop but there were none in her size, so she spent 3 days in the clothes she was wearing with the addition of an expensive tourist t-shirt from the service station at the resort.

Anyway, this walk will be the youngest's first overnight walk. Middle child has done one overnighter with scouts, but it was a short trial hike to see how they coped with the idea. So I am looking forward to the fun of the walk and seeing how the kids cope with sleeping out under the stars at -2 Celsius and carrying everything you need on your back. And by everything I mean a sleeping bag and some water, I imagine I will be a pack mule for their food and plates and other stuff. After all I don't want them to hate the experience. It is fantastic that all 3 of my kids are now old enough to do this stuff, so I can get back out there myself. Although, the other thing is that the kids are now also old enough that I can ignore them and go off and do things by myself sometimes too. So, this walk is a warmup for the overland track in January. And for that walk only miss 14 will be joining me. Not that we are walking alone, but she is the only one of the kids who is coming along.

So, the short version of that story is...
I am probably nearing the end of my posts for June, but I will be quite a few posts shy of the magic number 30.