Walking4Air

“At the beach, life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun.”
~ Anonymous

Yesterday marked 40 days till we depart. FORTY days. That doesn’t seem like a lot and I know before I know it we are going to be down to a single digit countdown…. I know it’s real and I’m buying so many little things I need for the trip but yet somehow it still feels like it’s all just a dream. I often find myself pinching myself ~ yip this is in fact my life!  My bucket list continues to get ticked off ~ And dreams really do come true.

There was no training hike this Sunday so Donna and I contemplated doing a hike on our own but we decided on a 10km soft sand beach walk instead.  It was such a beautiful, warm winter’s day and perfect to walk at the beach.

The first few minutes on the beach gave us a taste of what it must be like and what it might be like on Kili if our toes get cold. It was still early when we left and although the sun was warming the earth, the beach sand was still ice-cold. Within minutes our toes were frozen and it was almost painful to walk!!

Two pairs of frozen feet ~ Getting ready for Kilimanjaro!

Luckily, the blood started moving through our bodies and we began to warm up and soon our feet became accustomed to the coldness of the sand. We did not attempt to get our feet wet, had we done this, I think our feet might just have fallen off altogether!

It was still early and the beach was pretty deserted except for a few other souls strolling along.

A gorgeous winters day, a lonesome fisherman along the water’s edge and a view to feast your eyes on!

Somewhere along the way, we stopped to mark our 40 days to departure in the sand. A piece of drift wood became our pen “5895 – 40 Days of Counting.” Meaningless to most but dreams come true for us.

Marking our 40 days in the sand!

Just 40 days to departure and to conquering our biggest mountain yet!

Two girls & a mountain to climb ~ 40 days to our next adventure!

 “I could never stay long enough on the shore; the tang of the untainted, fresh, and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought.”
~ Helen Keller

I love it when Cape Town shows her pretty face!

An almost deserted beach with just a few footprints in the sand.

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.” ~ Pamela Vaull Starr

I love that I’m sharing this journey with Donna, she overflows with such a beautiful, wildly excited yet gentle sense of wonder for all things and she’s shares positivity for everything like me and believes we can achieve anything we put our minds to. The duration of our walk was filled with excited chatter about our trip with occasional bursts in-between of “Is your stomach in?” to which we both suddenly stretch about 5 cm’s taller as we pull our tummies in! This has become something we shout out to each other as we train, it’s good for working our muscles and building our core strength and getting our posture right too, only problem is it doesn’t quite work so well when your bladder is full!  My training hikes are never dull, the scenery is always something of awe and the company makes training something enjoyable and when I’m not doing it, I find I’m missing it.

~ Ingredients for a life well Lived ~

~ Believing in the Impossible ~

~ Living the life of my Dreams ~

 

~ All photos by me ~