Blog 1.
I have never, ever had the butterflies that I have experienced these last few weeks getting ready for this journey; they have taken me, in their spell, on the wildest of roller-coaster rides, day in and day out.
Am I crazy for wanting to do this?
These last weeks I have been weighing out every last item that I now, on the eve of my flight, finally get to pack in my ultra-light 40 litre ladies‘ rucksack (Osprey). The goal was for the grand total to be no more than 10 kg, not including bottled water. I was kind of proud that if I deduct the weight of what I will be wearing at any given time, the pack will weigh only 9.6 kg or so.
I have practiced! The weight feels fine for my runs up and down the steep hill near where I live, but that hill, called the Kornberg, is a mere fifth of the volume facing me on just my third day there in a brutal 800m ascent! My pilgrim’s guidebook affectionately refers to these days as „henro-karogashi“. Kind of like kamikaze, karogashi is the type of ascent that can bring a pilgrim to his or her knees in despair.
In my 8 – 9 week trek of the island, there will “only” be 9 such killer ascents. But watching the odd YouTube, other pilgrims claim it can be the descents down the other side of the mountain that can put you in hospital with knee complaints, ready to throw in the towel!
So, about 350g of my contents are dedicated to knee bandages, a further 450g to joint-friendly trekking poles, and a whapping 500g to a first-aid kit of blister plasters and, of course, arnica.
No, this pilgrimage is not for the faint-hearted. What would I be losing sleep over, if I were losing sleep?
It is strange that, despite the butterflies, I am sleeping well at night. I think it‘s because I have not really stopped to think about the fatigue after a 25 km day, or a day walking in nothing but driving rain, when I would give anything for a warm drink, only to find no drinks machines or convenience stores for another 10km. Imagine.
Or perhaps those „hot-spots“ I have been hearing about, the one‘s your feet will be yelling about after hours pounding the asphalt. (I will be taking before and after pics of my feet!)
No, none of that is causing me to lose sleep. But I am starting to feel a bit homesick, when I think of my garden and the blooms I will miss this Spring. That said, my timing is impeccable, for the NHK World service has just announced that the Japanese cherry blossoms will start opening on the 2nd day of my trek, so I will have a good month of pretty petals raining down on the route.
What I will miss most, more than my Earl Grey and other home comforts, will be my cat Neo, who can definitely tell something is up. He has never seen a rucksack before, but he sure knows what it means when I start packing my black suitcase, which he has seen hundreds of times before. Two months is a long time to leave him with a housesitter, the organisation of which was another major to-do on the prep list, but one that turned out well.
I have been lucky to have a coach to help me prepare, someone who has done it all before. His name is Dirk and he is the one in the pictures of the trail on the homepage. I am walking in his footsteps, so to speak, and he is there to help with any question or nervousness. Arigato!
Our mutual Japanese teacher here in Germany put us in contact, but we have not actually met in person yet…
Dirk told me tonight, that I could already start thinking of items to discard along the way, as you feel every gram on the trail. It’s not that I’m packing my electric toothbrush – I am not even taking shampoo – but, for me, a seasoned packer, I have weighed everything, down to the tampon, and I am not sure what I can chuck.
To those of you thinking of doing this pilgrimage, please contact me after a few weeks when I will be happy to share with you the “experienced” version of my Excel packing list for girls. There would be little point in sharing it with you now.
Next blog I will cover the item of sleep, not whether I did get any sleep tonight, but more importantly, how I get on finding the first few nights’ accommodation on the trail.
See you on the other side! Sayonara x
P.S. This is the first blog I have EVER written, on a little homepage I set up a couple of days ago. That is the part of the spell of this amazing walk, it is already pushing me beyond what I thought possible!
Marion Gibson 