Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes. Rosie Pope Swale

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СКАЧАТЬ Holland, it’s the way of travelling that matters. I bless the heavy pack that’s crippling me, because I’m so slow. Slowness gives you eyes in your feet and can be a catalyst for the senses.

      Klaas Hoeve is publishing two of my sailing books in Dutch. He and his assistant Madelon take me to lunch in Haarlem, bringing chocolate whose giant chocolate letters say Rosie. He’s meeting me again in the north of Holland at Leewarden. I eat one letter of my name every day for extra energy, continuing along little roads and paths weaving through marshlands, dykes and more empty landscape than I imagined existed in Holland in a misty landscape of sudden shafts of light, with rainstorms, windmills and farms often only just visible as if on a delicate, washed-out artist’s canvas.

      I’m using a lot of energy and need to eat often. I buy food in little shops in isolated villages. Grocers are understanding when I purchase just a few potatoes, three carrots, one onion. Vegetables are delicious but heavy to carry. It changes my way of shopping completely when I have to carry it all on my back. I’m also rediscovering spaghetti—wonderful with Dutch cheese. There are 500gm per pack and 100gm is 300 calories. If you add various bits and pieces, it’s a good budget meal. My tiny stove becomes the centre of my life. There aren’t many cafes in the countryside, even in Holland. Even if I find a restaurant, I often don’t stop. I must economise as my budget for the entire run is very small. A few thousand pounds a year.

      The first frost comes on 23 October: a scattering of snow followed by driving sleet and rain. I’m happy I’ve picked up a parcel of heavier-duty clothes and kit sent ahead to my publisher. The weather is always good from inside a PHD Khumbu storm-proof Gortex jacket.

      On 25 October I run across the first 15km of the Afsluitdijk dam that stretches 35km in a beautiful, dramatic way between the open water of Waddensee and the inland Ijsselmeer seas, a vast engineering feat that’s the only route between the west of Holland and Friesland. It feels almost like the parting of the waves of Jordan, with the sea either side letting you through.

      Later, offshore lights rock and sway as ships and boats are tossed on the waves; cars along the dam crash up skeins of water from the deluges as they proceed. I’m like a sea-beacon of light by the side of the road, wearing my newest reflectors and shining lights on the pack and adorning my coat. Drivers are courteous, lowering their headlight beams to spare me. I put my head down and run with a will.

      I make it to Leewarden and, though sleepy and like a wet dog with my breath all steamy and hair like sodden fur, I feel so pleased. I’m warmly welcomed by Leewarden College students. Soon I feel great again thanks to them, dry the most essential items out, have a hot shower and rest. Then the real events of the day start. The roads become packed with runners, all wearing Rosie’s Run T-shirts. We do 25km around sublime wooded Friesian countryside, with traditional homes with carved porches and a feeling all its own.

      The support is such that I don’t feel tired; the occasion ends with a concert by the local Shantykoor choir who sing great sea shanties and other songs. The words of ‘Molly Malone’ and ‘Irish Eyes are Smiling’ are still echoing in my head as I continue running towards Germany.

      I head over the border on 2 November, one month since I’ve set off. I’ve now done 500 miles though the next 10,000 miles are going to be in kilometres, which is nice and encouraging. Kilometres may not be as lovable as miles (you never reach ‘a kilometre-stone in life’) but give the illusion of making progress by adding up more quickly.

      I cross the border some distance beyond the last Dutch town of Groningham. No passport stamp, no officials. You’d hardly know you were in a different country. But I’m given a beautiful path beyond Bunde that will avoid all the busy roads.

      The rain has started, everything keeps getting wet. I can’t keep my eyes open all the same as the excitement of the last week is catching up. I’m so tired, I have to drop where I stop, which happens to be in the most beautiful late autumn forest. I’m never going to get over how I’ve always thought of Germany as an industrial country, yet it also has the most glorious broad-leaf forests I have ever seen. I prop up the bivvi, stuff myself into my great big double sleeping bag, and I’m gone, lost to the world.

      One night I wake up in a terrible fright. Something has crashed into the bivvi. There’s a loud squeal and heavy breathing outside. I say a lot of prayers all at once. I’m shaking all over, trying to gather my wits as I grab the torch.

       CHAPTER 5 Eric the Wild Boar

       Germany, November 2003

      Something very alive, large, and struggling frantically, falls on top of me.

      It’s crazy trying to get the zip open, as everything is being flung all over the place. The bivvi hits a tree, and I get a thud on the head. I drop the torch, and am squashed flat in the dark. Luckily the torch is within my grasp.

      I manage to get the strained zip open at last, and almost drop dead from astonishment. I’m still frightened but can’t stop laughing either. Shaking almost as much as me and regarding me with little black short-sighted eyes, twitching his snout with fine whiskers and a pair of small tusks, is a wild boar. He seems quite young though large and appears to have collided with my home by accident. Probably out looking for truffles or something. He looks so sweet but I’ve heard that wild boars are dangerous. He’s got himself caught up with the trotters in the guy rope, which on the bivvi are very low and he’s twisting around until practically wearing the bivouac. We’re both too squashed to move. I’ve heard that when dealing with bears, which I’ve never done before, you have to talk to them, so I say, ‘It’s OK, Eric —’ (the first name that comes to mind) ‘— I don’t want any bacon for breakfast. Obelix might eat three wild boars for breakfast but not me!’

      I’m so worried the bivvi will get wrecked, but he’s standing stock still now although wound in it so tightly and it’s all wedged around a tree root. I can hardly move either. It seems like hours have passed, though it’s only moments since it all began. I never ever thought I’d end up being joined at the hip with a wild boar. Finally I sacrifice one of the guy ropes, cutting it with my small knife. Eric shakes himself free as if to see if he’s really at liberty, then twists his little tail round and tears away with one last snort.

      It’s well after dawn. Sunshine comes through the golden leaves on the oak trees. Everything is drenched from the rain which has stopped without my noticing.

      My tent is a scene of chaos but has somehow held together, although my precious Marmite and lavender oil have blended together, putting me off both for quite some time.

      I’ll never forget Eric the Wild Boar and the lesson he’s taught me. This is a multifaceted journey, not just a run. In future I put little white ties on the guy-ropes to warn any short-sighted creatures that I’m there. Wild animals don’t often attack you, but it doesn’t pay to startle them. I’m to learn that they’re not keen on a fight, as they don’t wish to become injured themselves. There’s not much joy in being an injured predator, because that way you don’t get to eat. But I have to avoid another confrontation even like the one with berry- and truffle-eating Eric, however much we’d got along OK in the end, because the kit won’t stand it.

      I manage to gather my equipment together; it’s pretty muddy and needs patching. I don’t fancy sleeping in it before cleaning it up but I could do—it isn’t too bad. I pack everything and have a good 35km run to Leer, the first German town. Ahead of me is the most beautiful sight: a hotel with pretty flower-boxes, the warmth and smell of hot coffee and signs for home-made apple strudel and delicious German sausages and sauerkraut.

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