I hiked from Scheveningen to Zandvoort, indeed a nice beach and dune hike of 40km. It was pretty easy to navigate, just going north. As my mind started to be busy with other things than navigating, I started to finally put in words why I started this hiking challenge.
Beginning of last year I was down a lot, emotional, grumpy and nothing seemed to please me. Soon the doctors found out I had a vitamin D deficiency and once on supplements I started to feel better. But I was still a little bit confused, I was not down anymore but also not happy. I was wondering why this was, off course my life was on most subjects not like I would like it to be, but there seemed to be more to this problem.
I thought that in the years before many things have changed, two relative long relationships, I got a job and consequently also money, I got my motorbike driver’s license and started to play rugby. With my life going through so many changes, I did not know who I was anymore, if that makes any sense. As a logic next step I thought of something that made me happy before all those changes, when was I the happiest? When was I really me? This was quite an easy question as my hike along the Rhine river has always been my ‘once of a life time travel’. Except for my dad, with whom I never spoke about hiking, I did not knew anyone who liked to travel with all and only necessary luggage on their backs. Thankfully I had some support of friends, and my dad, to hike few weeks with me, but no one was so ‘crazy’ to hike the full two months with me. I thought of it as being something ‘me’, and thought that to know who I am, I needed to go hiking a lot.
Now that I hiked a lot, and more will be hiked in the next months, I do get closer to who I am. In coming blogs I could expand on how hiking brings out who I am. Also, despite the Rhine river hike will remain a ‘once in a life time travel’, because it introduced me to hiking and trekking, but there will be more ‘once in a life time travels’, which will include hiking.
Hike on!
43/906/1500 (this weekend’ s distance/total distance so far/distance to reach)
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