Deciding what to take
One set of clothes on, the other set drying
Like everybody else, we took far too much on our first walk. Our basic criterion now is that everything we carry (except for a warm top and a rain cape) should be used every day. That still leaves room for discretion - for example, do you take a pillow, or just use folded clothes? We agonise over decisions like this. Keith carries a pillow, Jenny doesn’t.
Keith's amazing shrinking pack. In 2003...
We take only one change of clothes. As soon as we are installed in a camping ground, we wash our walking clothes, hang them out to dry and wear the other set for the rest of the day. The pants we wear at night have detachable legs so they can be worn short or long, depending on the weather. During the day we normally wear shorts.
...in 2006...
The thickness of your warm top depends on how much you feel the cold and how much you are prepared to risk a chilly walk back to the tent after dinner. As to rain gear, we no longer carry Goretex jackets, which were heavy and seldom used. Instead we take flimsy plastic ponchos weighing less than 50g, that can cover not only you, but your pack, so that you look like a two-legged bison. These are fine as long as you are not pushing through foliage, where they would get shredded.
...and 2008
Jenny has a full-length bedroll, Keith a short self-inflating mattress, which is smaller but heavier. Female hips require a hip-hole, which we dig as discreetly as possible so as not to enrage the camping ground staff. We try to save the piece of grass that we dig up and put it back in the morning, with a hopeful dash of water.
We have experimented with sleeping bags. One year we took half-zip bags, which proved a mistake, because on hot nights it was hard to get free of the bag. We now use Macpac Escapade 150 liners, which are very light (0.48kg) and have a full zip. If it is cold, we wear our clothes to bed as well.
Approaching a disused railway tunnel of unknown length
We use lightweight walking shoes rather than the serious boots that we would wear in the Australian bush. When not carrying our packs, we wear lightweight sandals, and on cool evenings we have even committed the atrocity of wearing socks under them. Luckily we did not meet anyone we knew.
We did contemplate buying super-lightweight packs, but decided they were too flimsy. Jenny takes a climbing pack that she bought in Italy over 20 years ago, from which she has cut off all the excess straps so that it weighs only a kilo. Keith has now taken four different packs to France; each one smaller and lighter than the previous one. His current pack is an Osprey Talon 33 (large) that weighs 0.85kgs, which he got by taking all his gear into an outdoor shop and picking the smallest pack that could contain it all.
Checking the pedometer reading
We carry a very small torch but we hardly ever use it because we walk in mid-summer. It is handy for walking through disused railway tunnels and sometimes for sneaking late at night into a farmer’s field. Our torch would fit into a matchbox and weighs 25 grams.
Since 2003 Keith has worn a Suunto Observer watch/altimeter/barometer/compass. We use the altimeter function to keep track of our daily ascents and descents, the barometer to check on overnight weather changes, and the compass to occasionally get our bearings. We have never been really lost in France, but have strayed from the track many times, when the compass has been a great help in getting us back on it.
Also, coming from the southern hemisphere where the mid-day sun is to the north we sometimes get a bit disorientated in France with the mid-day sun to the south, so a compass can be useful at such times.
Jenny usually wears a pedometer, which helps us to estimate how far we have walked each day. We also use it to estimate how far we walk around the village etc. after we arrive at our destination. In 2005 it was a surprising 300km.
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