GOING AFOOT

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 76

GOING AFOOT

By

A.H.

(Fob thb Witness.)

There is a fascination and freedom about this, the simplest mode of journeying, that is not in any other. One is not encumbered with horse or vehicle to guide and control, but may just go, and go at one’s own pace. On a line day in summer or autumn, with the creeks so low that one may step across them, it is delightful to go thus to call on one’s neighbours in tho country. And in winter or spring, when mud of varying depth lies between the homes, what exhilaration there is in putting on strong shoes or gumboots and going in a picked path, where one may avoid at least the worst of the boggy places! Why do our well-meaning husbands and sons, or fathers and brothers, seek to condemn one to sit in a saddle on a plunging, half-bogged horse, nervy and unhappy, when one might be enjoying the walk? “It’s too far,” they say, “and the road isn’t lit for walking. Why don’t you ride? I’ll get the horse ready for you.” The bogs at some of the gateways are alone enough to discourage one from going a-visiting on horseback. On foot, one would simply get through the fence at any convenient place, and avoid most of the mud, arriving cheerful and glowing, with a keen relish for the afternoon tea. What is a walk of tw'O or three miles? Just a delight.

Up a hill track, through busli, and down again on the other side, or along a level pumice road, with tussock on either hand, one walks with the sense of freedom that makes life glad—the same sense of freedom that comes with walking beside a muddy road, but not in it, close to that which hinders traffic, but not impeded by it.

Our two-mile walk to school at one period of our lives was, I am sure, far more interesting than a ride would have been. Riding, liow could we have picked blackberries and other things along the way, or visited our schoolfellows’ famous spring at the foot of the hill for a drink of water (to be entertained some times by these same schoolfellow's with almonds from the tree in their garden) ? My latest tramp of more than two or three miles took place a little over tw’o years ago, on the way home after a holiday of a few' w r eeks. I greatly wished to visit a sister whom I hadn’t seen for more than 13 years, and reaching the post office in her district, inquired whether the mail buggy would he going out there that day. No; it liad been out the day before, and wouldn’t be going again for six days. I went to the boarding-house to see if a conveyance might he going in tho direction of my sister’s home, or if I could hire a horse. The landlady’s little girl went to look for her mother, who she thought W'as in the garden. Presently she came back, unable to find her. There was no horse to he had that the little girl knew of. I sensed, and seized, my opportunity.

“I can easily w r alk,” I said. “It’s early in the afternoon. May I leave my luggage here?” “Yes,” said the little girl, “but it’s nine miles.”

“I can easily do it,” I said eagerly, determined to go before her mother should come in and hinder me. So, taking only my handbag, and with a direction from the little girl as to the first turning that saved me from going perhaps miles astray, I set out joyfully. I had lived there with my sister and her husband before my marriage, and had visited them two or three times since, but had partly forgotten the- road. Still, I remembered it fairly well, and the double enjoyment of going to give my sister a surprise and of being able to make the journey just as I liked, made the whole adventure a great pleasure. The good dray road, instead of the old pack track of earlier years there, was very much to my mind. There were no cattle to give me uneasiness and I went steadily on, as quickly as might be. I had gone more than half the distance when who should come along with a buggy and pair but my brother-in-law! He affected great surprise at seeing me, but presently, having turned his horses around and told me to jump in, he informed me that he was coming for me. The landlady of the boarding-house had rung up their local post office, and the post mistress had sent out word to them when her children came home from school, and he and my sister had lost no time in getting the horses ready. I was not sorry to ride the rest of tho way, but the freedom and happiness of that afternoon are good to recall to mind.