New Shoes

OR - WHERE MY SHOES HAVE WALKED

I put on a brand new pair of shoes last week - right out of the box! Call them sneakers or trainers, or runners (don't do much of that these days). They do look very clean and smart. Looking at the "old" pair - quite shabby beside the out-of-box pair, but still very comfortable; well worn, still with good thick soles though fading and some ground in dirt of travels.

In early 2008, my daughter convinced me that I needed a decent pair of shoes for all the travelling and walking that I'd been doing, so she took me to a store that was having a half price or 2-for-1 sale of good quality sports-type shoes. The most comfortable fit at the time was Nike and they cost $139.99 - quite expensive for Scrooge-me to pay for a pair sneakers, but at the sale price, this was for 2 pairs - half price! So I put the box with the second pair towards the back of the wardrobe. Only once before had I paid so much for footwear - in 1994, I have on record that I paid $129 for "new tennis shoes". I had loved my Diadora white leather tennis shoes and started to wear them everywhere as sneakers when I stopped playing tennis - always realising that the expense was definitely worth it; I had nearly 14 years of comfort from them.

So, I looked at my worn shoes and thought back to some of the wonderful places they have trodden:

- Sydney, Melbourne, Bairnsdale and Mallacoota
- Cairns, and a walk along Cape Tribulation beach
- Tasmania - mainly in the north-west: Devonport, Queenstown, Strahan, Rosebery and even the 5.5kms rail trails track to Montezuma Falls.

[Hmmm . . . I don't seem to travel in Australia very much - perhaps these new shoes will see more of my own country]

Overseas wonders have been short glimpses of the pavements of Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, southern China at Sanya, Malaysia (Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, and Kuala Lumpur); then stepping across the Indian Ocean to walk on the islands of Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles and Reunion; over to Europe to walk the cobblestones of some wonderful places along the Danube, Main and Rhine Rivers passing through Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany; then Amsterdam (beside the canals).

I have happy memories (and many photographs) of these great places - some nearly a day's travel from east coast Australia.

First steps, first trip - out the back door and walk to the car.

I wonder what exciting pavements these shoes will tread?