A small, not entirely good update I’m afraid.

Right now this trip is starting to look a little shaky, most of it caused by scheduling problems at work.

Is it fully over? No it isn’t, but it’s been cut by a whole month and will need to start a whole month earlier.

The fact it needs to start earlier is a challenge, but shouldn’t be a showstopper, it just means the nights at the start of the trip will be a lot colder (potentially below zero Celsius…but I have been in France with stunning spring temperatures as well in April), so i will need to make some choices there. Also several camping’s in France may not be opened yet at the start (That I could potentially cover with the more costly B&B’s option)

Changing it from 4 to 3 months however is a bigger issue, it basically means it will be difficult to do the route as i had originally planned. Could it not be done in 3 months? Sure it is not impossible in theory, but it means increasing daily distances substantially and it also means I will not really have time to stay in one area for any length of time to enjoy the sites in more detail…so the trip then would be a footrace to cover the distance and no longer be about the journey, but about the destination….Not what i wanted!

The only other option would be shortening the trip: i.e  starting halfway or skipping parts. I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet, basically it changes everything about the trip. Right now skipping the less interesting (or already seen) parts seems to be the best option, since it doesn’t change what the trip was originally all about so much, but it will make planning more complex, since at certain parts of the hike I will have to find some form of (public) transport to skip ahead.

All in all I need time to think and go back to the drawing-board, the original plan is simply no longer an option.

I guess it’s safe to say I’m bitterly dissapointed  and feel just  empty right now after preparing for well over a year, but if it means the difference between changing plans and not going at all, I know what avenue to investigate.

Stay tuned…walking 14-18 isn’t dead yet…just down for a sec.

grts
Hans