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Published: January 26th 2018
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And so it is done. The first night in TinyTim our tent......
I should say that we are now on the very west coast of an island called Chiloe which is itself off the west coast of Chile. We camped last night in a place called Cole Cole which is a beach that is only accessible by boat or by foot. Sadly we do not have a boat as we are travelling light so feet it had to be.
You may be pleased to hear that we are both alive and still married. It was not as dreadful as we had both imagined although I think Pete was considering (not for the first time) the potential benefits of having a slightly smaller wife.
On our six hour walk I was busying myself thinking about footprints. Not the lovely biblical story but one considerably more earthy. The footprint of each of our Big Bertha airbeds is 20 inches by 72 inches and they almost fit into the tent except for a tiny rather matey crossover at the bottom. I was working out my footprint which is of course not rectangular but in and out but the main dimensions seem
to be about 70 inches by 18 inches. Pete of course has a much larger footprint of 71 inches by 19 inches which all leaves diddly squat room in the tent for anything other than our boots and a couple of glasses of red wine. We do have friends (you know who you are) who could have friends round for dinner in a tent of the same size but not us....However the good news is that we did not have to sleep head to toe as we had feared during our practice run in the garden at home because although our shoulders don't fit in when we are both lying flat, if we take it in turns to lie on our side or wiggle down a bit we are just fine. So much nicer than sleeping with Pete's feet.
So a walk of 6 hours .....first hour on a track, second 2 hours on the sand with the Pacific ocean pounding the beach with waves that were ENORMOUS, and then three hours up and down slopes that made your eyes water. I know that I am known for my exaggeration but having discussed this with the much more honest
Pete, we agreed that the angle of the worst slopes was 45% and that is seriously STEEP.
However we made it to Cole Cole campsite and it was indeed amazing. The “water available” was from a stream but camping on a Pacific beach takes some beating. We were trying to figure out where we would arrive if we swam straight out from where we were (apart from Heaven or Davy Jones’ locker) but we couldn’t decide. Perhaps one of our million friends with geography degrees could help us?
The new lightweight air mattresses and sleeping bags were seriously comfy, to atone for the tight squeeze. Discovering rucksack neck muscles that haven’t seen much action for decades was a pleasure but not as pleasurable as the shower when we returned to our hostal. The tsunami alarm went off in the middle of the night but we didn’t hear it. It was the talk of breakfast but we remained blissfully unaware. Anyway I don’t think we could have outrun a tsunami so perhaps better not to know that one is coming. Could that be the first philosophical question for discussion on our return (or before).
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Martin Hatfield
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I don;t have a geography degree
And my 5 mins of googling has failed to uearth the exact location of Cole Cole - but travelling due west from Chiloe national park looks like it would bring you to the south island of New Zealand - worth a shot? I hear Heaven is pretty OK if you don't make it to NZ. :-)