20,819 Sunsets

Quite the extraordinary day.

Missing out the preamble about my (i’m going to say “walk”, but it was more like “Herculean feat”) walk, and to be fair, most of the actual amble, I’m moving on to the moment of maximum thrills because I realise that most of you are here for the punchline, the action, the bit where there’s lots of shiny things and loud noises.

So, I made up this idea of the 57 from ’67 challenge for myself on the occasion of my 57th birthday.

I’ve nominated a friendly helper, and all that ages ago.

Today was the day.

Frankly, parts of it were bloody terrifying. I decided I would like to do some fairly hardcore physical stuff to celebrate my great age. This was in the form of hiking with climbing around the Crnopac mountain which is opposite my home. 

I’d hiked the mountain extensively already but always avoided the parts where hiking becomes climbing. Here’s my definition of hiking vs climbing. Hiking is when at least one of your feet are on the ground at any one time, and a step with the free one is possible. 
The climbing on this adventure meant I needed to go with someone who knew what they were doing. 

Anyway, right near the finish, I’m hanging around (literally) off a rock on a rope and my phone gets answered. I’m not aware that I’ve made a call as it’s in my rucksack. But it transpires that I have. To the emergency services. I can hear it on my watch speaker: (translated) “Hello, what is the emergency?”

It’s impolite not to reply and hang up right?

I bring my right arm to my face and shout at the phone “I’m OK, my phone dialled you by mistake, can’t talk now, I’ve just fallen off a cliff”

I hang up by shouting at my watch as my left arm is busy. The call ends.

I continue with the fairly urgent business of physical survival, whilst my friendly helper yells abuse at me for conducting phone calls mid “situation”.

A while later I’m in what some people would call a safe situation, when my phone rings. It’s the emergency folks, who repeat what I said to them earlier, at which point I understand what I said to them. After some apologies, we agree that I am not in immediate peril (I was by all normal standards) and that’s that.

The rest of the day was rather eventful too.

And then, in danger of witnessing my 20,819th sunset on the mountain, we had to decide whether to make a dash (I use the word figuratively) to the mountain hut and stay the night, or try to get down off the mountain before dark.

We made it. Which is how I’ve got this rum from the shop.

Many thanks to my friendly helper, Anita, who found time in her quite frankly ludicrously busy schedule, to accompany me for the day. Without which I wouldn’t have been massively traumatised multiple times and she wouldn’t have had to stare at my arse for long periods of time as we climbed.

That’s all for now folks. Thanks for all the lovely messages.

Decisions have been made today for my 58th trip around the sun. (that’s what they call a “hook”)