A Story About The Jacket

Saturday saw rain like you wouldn't believe, the kind of rain you're not sure if it's safe to be driving in. But we were. On our way out for a late walk, probably in the rain and definitely in the dark. Poor Tracy was on Worried Mum duty with wee Evey sick so Mia and I roped in Andy, a fellow Oxfam walker (Knee Sweat, team 255). We've done a few training walks with Andy and he's well used to us. We think he probably finds it a relief to train with us as his team is full of serious men who probably don't giggle much. This walk was the longest, apparently hardest leg, 15kms from Cowan to Bewowra. Mia had her jacket on, Andy and I thought we'd just grunt it out and get wet. And so for the next 15kms it rained on and off intermitently. And Mia's jacket would come on and off when this happened. Except Mia's jacket is a big, long jacket, and she has a small camelbak packpack. So every time the jacket came off, the process of squeezing it into her bag would start. I think at one stage, Andy took her bag off her so he could do it. Faster.
So we clambered down rock faces, ran lovely ridges, admired stunning views, took a couple of wrong turns (what's an extra 1km in the dark and wet?)and meandered our way to the end in 31/2 hours. Highlights included the climb down to Bewowra Waters, Mia deciding to keep her jacket on for the rest of the walk, putting on a thermal top at about 10kms and the big one, wearing our head lights for the first time. Lowlights - our first casualty - Andy's Skins, he had a nasty skid in the FIRST 200 METRES, and fell over. Learnings of this walk.... I LOVE to walk in light rain, I felt great on this walk (probably as we got so many breaks with Mia stopping to do squeeze her jacket into her bag), Mia isn't so sure of the rain, we enjoyed transitioning to the dark, we need gloves, and the more hamstring work we can do the better - there were some steep climbs on this one. And folks, there are many fabulous feelings in life, but not much beats getting to a car when cold, wet and tired, putting on some dry clothes and knowing we were done. Andy and I hugged the car heaters the whole drive home.
Checkpoint 1 to Checkpoint 2 Cowan to Bewowra Waters
15kms, 3 1/2 hours, difficulty 5