Walking Backwards

No I do not actually mean walking backwards, what I mean is walking a route that you know

Shube at its best

well only doing it in the opposite way you normally do.

Since I discovered that I need to control my blood pressure I have found that walking is particularly effective as keeping it down. I therefore find any excuse to go for a walk. We have a lovely city park within a pleasant walking distance and I enjoy walking a loop of the park every second day. I have one route that takes me in on one end of the park and I walk a loop that takes me almost all the way around the park. Another enjoyable walk which is also a loop takes me through the park and then all the way around Lake Micmac. Both of these loops take around an hour and although Regis teases me that my walks are “boring”, I love seeing how the park changes with the seasons and the weather.

Fall in the park

Because both of these walks are loops, I normally walk them in the same direction every time. However I have discovered that even though I know the routes very well, if I walk the route backwards – starting where I normally end and exiting at my regular starting point, you see different things or see familiar things in a different way.

A family walk in the park

On one route, there is a large rock at one side of the trail, and I walked by it many times, but walking backwards I discovered that it was not just a ordinary rock. Coming upon it from the other direction I could clearly see that it was a failed attempt to cut a shape from the rock, either for a mill stone or perhaps a stone for lining one of the locks in the Shubenacadie canal system. As well there is a particularly attractive section that I have photographed under different lighting and conditions with intentions of painting a picture of it, but coming upon it from the opposite direction you hardly notice it; looks ordinary from the other direction.

Snow and animal footprints

Out of the park is the same; walking in the opposite direction forces you on the other side of the street and I suddenly noticed that although I had passed the houses on that side many times, you do not really take note of the details of the houses on the other side of the street.

Want to make a routine walk a bit more interesting? Try walking it backwards.