Canny entrepreneurs are continually devising ingenious new ways of encouraging us to travel more. Yet their methods sometimes produce anomalies.
Read any account of long distance walks and the protagonists will allude to the peculiar physics whereby one gram of luggage in the backpack mysteriously weighs one kilogram after walking a few miles. So when packing for a walking holiday, one naturally pares luggage down to the minimum. But on my recent Pennine Way trek, I engaged the services of a baggage carrier, a kind of rural white van man, who turned up every day and hefted a suitcase the size of a steamer trunk into the truck and deposited it at my next stop while I sauntered out with a day pack. How reassuring it was, when arriving at the next stop and greeted by a quizzical landlady wondering who this dishevelled bloke could be, to see the suitcase standing sentinel in the hall behind her, my guarantee of entry however unappealing a guest I might appear. And how refreshing it was to change into clean clothes, chosen from a vast array of outdoor gear covering all eventualities from sand storms to blizzards. No counting the grams for me!
One of the pleasures of a weekend city break is doing what you please: a bit of gentle sightseeing, a morning in bed, dinner at a fancy restaurant. So naturally, a few different outfits, even for the most curmudgeonly fashion-resistant amongst us, is desirable. So how come I'm trying to fit all my gear into a suitcase half the size of my Pennine Way day pack? Yes, it's the curse of the low cost airline which will blithely charge more to transport a weekend's worth of clothes in the hold than they require for a ticket to fly you a thousand miles.
© David Thompson 2012
Read any account of long distance walks and the protagonists will allude to the peculiar physics whereby one gram of luggage in the backpack mysteriously weighs one kilogram after walking a few miles. So when packing for a walking holiday, one naturally pares luggage down to the minimum. But on my recent Pennine Way trek, I engaged the services of a baggage carrier, a kind of rural white van man, who turned up every day and hefted a suitcase the size of a steamer trunk into the truck and deposited it at my next stop while I sauntered out with a day pack. How reassuring it was, when arriving at the next stop and greeted by a quizzical landlady wondering who this dishevelled bloke could be, to see the suitcase standing sentinel in the hall behind her, my guarantee of entry however unappealing a guest I might appear. And how refreshing it was to change into clean clothes, chosen from a vast array of outdoor gear covering all eventualities from sand storms to blizzards. No counting the grams for me!
One of the pleasures of a weekend city break is doing what you please: a bit of gentle sightseeing, a morning in bed, dinner at a fancy restaurant. So naturally, a few different outfits, even for the most curmudgeonly fashion-resistant amongst us, is desirable. So how come I'm trying to fit all my gear into a suitcase half the size of my Pennine Way day pack? Yes, it's the curse of the low cost airline which will blithely charge more to transport a weekend's worth of clothes in the hold than they require for a ticket to fly you a thousand miles.
© David Thompson 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment