Wee and me

So. Let's get it out there straight away. Urination. This post is about urination. Not in general and not conceptually - me, very personally, and my urination. Look away if you'd like to. I'll try to make my next post low on squeamishness.

When it comes to wee, boys have a level of physical freedom that us girls have simply had to come to terms with. It's not that we want to be boys; it's just a natural yearning to be unencumbered, devil-may-care; to roam long and far in any earthly direction without having that little bean of an idea tucked away in the back of your mind. You know the one. It's thinking, "I'm going to have to go to the bathroom at some point...and that means my pants at my ankles and my bare bot a few centimeters from a melee of animals, rotting plants and dung.

A couple weeks ago I became reacquainted with a thing called the WhizBiz. I'd heard of this some years ago, pre-Camino, when it was being marketed as a solution to really long toilet queues at music festivals. It's a ladies' wee aid, a device that allows a woman to wee whilst standing. It looks kind of like a specially adapted funnel:


It's hydrophobic, meaning liquid does not like being on it. It's antibacterial, meaning it is not an inviting place for bacteria to stay and breed. It's good to give it a rinse after use, but it's not necessary after every use. Just give it a flick and pop it in a ziploc bag.

This morning, I took my first real wee standing up. It didn't run down my legs. The lily (the wide mouth) didn't overflow. It felt perfectly comfortable. And the thought of free peeing was deeply, inexplicably exhilirating.

The Way: Camino De Santiago

There's a documentary video we've found really handy over the last few months called The Way: Camino Do Santiago. It's by a Victorian guy called Mark Shea, and it's a great insight into what to expect. He did it by himself, so it's a much more realistic insight than some of the travel documentaries where you know the presenter had a full support crew to carry their gear and bail them out of trouble.

There's a few reasons I found it so handy.

I think the Camino is a difficult thing to explain to people verbally. Saying "We're walking 800kms in about 5 weeks across Spain" just doesn't seem to do it justice. Showing Mark's video to family & friends has given everyone a better understanding of what we're undertaking and the physical & mental scale of it. It's interesting watching the evolution of the documentary as time goes by, especially seeing him become more comfortable in front of the camera.

From the point of view of someone about to walk the Camino, it was also handy from a practical point of view. Seeing what happens to someone's knees & ankles when they realise they've brought way too much gear has made us very weight concious (Mark had a 10kg pack plus 8kg of camera gear... the recommended total weight is 10kg). It also gave us an idea of what to expect in terms of people, walking terrain and sleeping accommodation.

I'll stop here incase this starts sounding like an advert. :-)

Here's the link to the video with a few short preview clips:

http://www.overlander.tv/camino/

And an interview with the filmmaker is here.

Rocket Man

Well, it's official. We now look like rocketmen.

During the last trip we discovered that we couldn't attach the walking poles to the backpacks without needing to assist each other -- the attachment points were right in the middle of the back. The guys at Backpacking Light (the place we've bought 90% of our gear) told us about quivers that could be attached to either side of our packs. With the poles stashed away, we both now look like Rocketman (or Rocketpeople to be PC).

We headed out to Bunyip State Park on Saturday, carrying the full packs (~10kg each). Here's the approximate route we walked. Once again we had a few map issues. We took the map from Parks Victoria, but found that it was no longer accurate (some trails closed long ago for revegetation, some tracks renamed, etc). The Parks Victoria map bears little resemblance to the GoogleMaps equivalent. Meh, it's all part of the adventure. :-)

A few highlights: meeting Enid Echidna; climbing over a massive fallen tree; walking for hours without seeing anyone (seems to be a common theme on the tracks we're taking); guessing how out of date & inaccurate the map was; waking at 4am to rub Tigerbalm into our knees.

Yesterday we headed out for a few hours of relaxed riding with Hong & Vy. It was good to get back on the bikes again, especially since we spent more time eating icecream than we did peddling.

A lot of short walks

I generally log the distance of each of our walks, and the weight we carry. I was surprised tonight to see that in the last few months we've each walked about 460kms -- the equivalent of Melbourne to Wagga Wagga (NSW), or Melbourne to Bordertown (Sth Aust).

We're not quite in Forrest Gump's league yet, but we're on our way.

Lerderderderderderderderg

Lerderderg. Who the hell named that place? Anyway, it's a great place for hiking.

Hannah & I went out today with the backpacks, carrying about 8kgs and 11gks respectively. Part of the weight in the packs was our real gear, but I ended up stuffing woolen blankets and other things in there to bring the weight up higher still.

We started off down in the gorge, and walked for a solid hour straight up one of the hills. We walked for over 2.5 hours in total, which doesn't sounds like much, but when it's unrelenting uphill carrying a decent weight, you certainly notice your legs. :-) Here's the track we walked.

It's physically demanding at times, but we figure, the fitter & healthier we are when we start the Camino, the more we will enjoy it and learn from it. Plus, it's fresh air & beautiful scenery... how can we really complain?

One thing I would definitely recommend for people going out there: track down and purchase the official map to the park. The place is huge (14,250 hectares), and the signage within the park is shitful. You can get a basic map from here, but I'm not sure how much I'd trust it. The one place in the park that we really wanted a map for simply didn't have the detail to work out where the track started from. Oh, if you forget to print the map before you leave, they've got copies of it at the tourist info office in Bacchus Marsh (about 20 mins before you get to the park).

Something in the park amused me: somebody had graffitied "Wolf Creek" in the picnic area. If you've seen the movie (inspired by Ivan Milat's backpacker murders, and Peter Falconio's murder), I'm sure that's the last thing you'd want to be thinking about just before you head off into the wilderness. Glad we saw that after the hike. ;-)

We're very much in Get Stuff Done mode now. It's only just over 3 months until we leave, and we still have soooooooo much to do -- the main thing being obtaining work visas for an as yet undecided destination. EEEEEEEK! I've created project management documents, and Hannah has printed A3 sized calendars for the remaining few months. Our place is going to look like NASA headquarters until we've got everything sorted.

Quick Update

Wow. It's Jan 2009 already!

Just a very quick update:

Hannah & I walked the 1000 Steps (AKA Kokoda Walk) in the Dandenongs just before Christmas. It's not all that long (only around 3kms return), but it's bloody steep! There's a climb of about 300 meters in only 1500 meters of walking. Great for the leg muscles! Here's the GoogleMaps link for all the adventurers that want to find it.

I dropped Hannah off at Tullamarine Airport the following day, and while I was out that direction I headed out to Lerderderg State Park. It's not as picturesque as the Dandenongs, but the walking trails seem much much longer. I walked about 20kms over 5 hours and only covered a tiny part of it (maybe 2% of the available tracks). Actually, it's poorly signposted, so a lot of the walking I did was outside the park itself. If you're heading in, make sure you print a Google Map first (it's outside the range the street directory covers). Here's the GoogleMaps link.

On Saturday, Hannah & I are heading out to Lerderderg again, probably with heavier packs than we've taken before. I'm going to suggest to the park ranger that they change its name. "Lerderderg". What the hell were they thinking?