Walking Wisely: The Story of Susan (Pilgrim 512)

It started a few years ago when I saw the movie ‘The Way’. I want to walk the Camino! Then it turned out that there was a pilgrimage nearer; the Walk of Wisdom, around my own Nijmegen. Isn’t that a logical start?

I walked the first stage in stages, at the end of March during the first sun-drenched day of spring, to Kranenburg. After that, we had to wait a while for spring to return; with Ascension Day I walked another two days and came to the halfway point of the route. Last week I walked around the round, three more days.

The Walk of Wisdom starts off smashing, the first two days are a succession of ‘oohhh it’s so beautiful here!’. The Ooijpolder, Duivelsberg, the Reichswald, the Sint Jansberg and the Mookerheide; each and every one of them impressive landscapes. A lot of climbing and descending these days, but it’s beautiful, all that light green that has just burst out of the buds. Spring! I meet two deer along the way, and yes, a fellow WisdomWalker!

After Malden, the forests are over for a while and the piece of agricultural landscape, silence and desolation begins, which personally makes me a bit sad. The weather doesn’t help either. I talk a lot to sheep these days, who stare at me en masse as if they see a Martian woman. But then, the last day, the Gran Finale, from Afferden via the Waal back to Nijmegen, again completely in the ‘oooooh how beautiful it is here!’ atmosphere. The beautiful weather helps to make all the greens, blues and yellows pop. In the dike warehouse Ewijk I buy a mini-painting, a nice memento of this trip. I follow the Waal to Nijmegen and when I arrive in Heaven I string the last bird ring on the shoelace, mission accomplished! Off to Via de la Plata! ;)

More of Susan’s Walk of Wisdom stories can be read on her own site.