Hiking

Perhaps I should have titled this "walking" but, despite the suburban setting, "hiking" seems the most apt choice.

My husband and I have been on some long walks in the last few days. The quirks of physiology never cease to amuse me, and I love the fact that I seem to get an endorphin high sooner and more intensely than he does! Hmmm ... endorphin rush. Definitely one of my favourite things.

Our first walk was a modest 80 minutes, the first time trekking from my studio on Warrigal Road to home in Mount Waverley. We headed south then turned east along Scotchman's Creek Trail. Apart from some accidental detours (into a golf course, around a lake) it was a very pleasant walk.

This morning's effort was something quite different. Starting from near the top of Wheeler's Hill and heading home, we had hopes that "downhill" would be the key word of the day. We had, to our newly sardonic perspective, a naive belief that we had tackled some steep hills on our previous walk.

I'm a physicist, so I cannot explain how you can begin a walk near what seems to be the highest point between you and the horizon and yet spend so much bloody time walking uphill! (Oh, actually, now I type that sentence, I do see how it can be done ... but that's a topological story for another time.) The path we chose lead us mainly along residential streets, so for someone who's not into real estate, it wasn't all that interesting - though I did see some lovely hedges and excellent species selection in some gardens. This was just as well, because you can solve all the world's problems, map out the future of your friends and family, and still run out of conversation in 100 minutes.

A few missed signs, 1.5 litres of water and 8.61 kilometres later, we were home. We must have been walking a far more efficient line than I'd thought at the time, because when we drove back to pick up my husband's car, the odometer said 7.2 kilometres - and that was along a single-turn, right-angled route.

Well, right now I'm still riding that endorphin rush, but need to be solicitous of my poor suffering partner. Perhaps I'll helpfully suggest some stretches. Yeah, that'll go down well ...