Meet the Ministry of Silly Walks!
Home » Blog » Meet the Ministry of Silly Walks!Introducing Good guest bloggers and Oxfam Trailwalker 2012 team, The Ministry of Silly Walks. Each fortnight the team will share their experiences as they prepare for their first Oxfam Trailwalker challenge to raise funds for Oxfam. The team is quietly confident they’ve got what it takes but there are sure to be life-lessons learned along the way! By team member Ines Gessler.
Current team fundraising total: $3,073.
Oxfam Trailwalker is an annual fundraising event held in Taupo (March 31 – April 1, 2012) where teams of four walk 100km together within 36 hours to raise money for Oxfam's work in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. As well as being a momentous personal challenge for a fantastic cause, Oxfam Trailwalker is committed to environmental sustainability and has been awarded Best Environmentally Sustainable Event three years running, by the New Zealand Association of Events Professionals.
Check out the Ministry of Silly Walks team page (donations welcome), or set up your own team at www.oxfamtrailwalker.org.nz - deadline for new team registrations is January 31, 2012!
The beginning
It was a dark and stormy night. The wind roared through ragged pines and in the distance half starved wolves bayed their distress at the hidden moon. In the basement of a decrepit cottage four public servants discussed their plans for the coming months, finding that none of them had a set goal for the summer. A bolt of lightning struck the crumbling ruins just as the Ministry of Silly Walks team was born. “We’re alive!” they howled as one. And so the legend of the Ministry of Silly Walks and Oxfam Trailwalker began.
The team
Lynne White (our glorious leader), Paul Gilbert, Elizabeth Holland and Ines Gessler make up the Ministry of Silly Walks . While none of us has ever walked anywhere near 100km in one go, we do have a combined 100+ years experience in walking. Every single member of our team has been walking on a daily basis since before our second birthdays so we believe that we have put in the preliminary preparation required to begin our journey toward conquering the Oxfam Trailwalker.
The training
Our training thus far has consisted of three team walks (as well as individual hikes). Our first training walk began with a very dramatic rescue of a child trapped in a car teetering off the edge of a cliff. Granted, the cliff was less than a metre high and the child could have got out at any point, but without the Ministry of Silly Walks team the girl and her father would have been delayed in their journey for at least an hour.
So, having helped push the car squarely back on to the road, our fist training walk breezed by in a panorama of spectacular views (which we couldn’t capture because we forgot a camera).
What our first walk lacked in intensity was amply made up for in our second walk. An eight-hour slog (approximately) that involved more uphill than a flea’s journey over a camel’s back.
Our third walk, focused more on distance, familiarised us with the outlying hills and suburbs of Wellington.
Lessons learnt (thus far)
In no particular order:
- Always remember to bring a camera.
- Putting hoods over caps keeps them on your head (even on a ridgeline in windy Wellington).
- Don’t wear ankle socks under tramping socks. It just results in horrible blisters.
- Make sure you put sunscreen on your ears.
- Practice eating while walking, drinking while walking, putting on/taking off jackets while walking. The more you can do while walking the less often you will have to stop.
- The sheep’s wool in the Oxfam packs is amazing. It eliminated my problem blister spot completely, and all I did was wrap a little bit of wool loosely around my toes.
More from the Ministry of Silly Walks in a fortnight!
Photo credits: Ministry of Silly Walks
Wed January 11, 2012 @ 03:14 PM
