This book takes us on a journey with Colin Fletcher on "The Walk".
The New York Times obituary (Colin died in 2007) says the hike was done to contemplate marrying his girlfriend.
The book makes no mention of this, perhaps because the marraige lasted but a few weeks.
This is a confusing bit of information, there seemed to be no hint of this in the book.
At first this new bit of information seemed incongrous. How could a chap go on a walk of six months in which so many things were revealed to him and became clear only to come to a totally wrong conclusion concerning one of the things he set out to achieve.
I can only imagine that the six months Colin spent changed him enough that he married the girl he knew but she married a man she didn't.
Does this diminish the book?
Well perhaps for those that have not learnt the lesson "Life isnt fair"
The book itself was a "page turner" for me, I read it in a couple of days. Its not one of these modern blockbusters which hardly qualify as hand luggage on aircraft anymore they are so bloated.
So what did I get out the book.
Well, time has meant its impact has diminished.
He may well have been the first person to write about extended self-sufficient backpacking in the modern context but plenty have followed him down that route now.
So the wow factor of "you can really do this" has been lost with the passage of time.
The thing I took from it was, "its okay to do this". In fact its important to follow the voice within you.
Be the person you want to be, at a pace you want to do it at.
The characters Colin meet along the way bring this message home perhaps more than Colin himself.
Few people go to their graves wishing they had worked an extra day, they wished they had seen the mountains, just looked upon another sunrise.
This book is about a journey, not the destination or the equipment. It attained no first, it was not a superhuman effort, on the surface there seemed no point to actually doing it beyond the "because it is there".
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