1 Lambert: Okay, we're in! Let's hit the road! It'll be good to get back into a good old fashioned quest again.
2 Mordekai: Yes!
2 Dwalin: Aye!
2 Alvissa: Indeed!
2 Draak: Draak like!
2 Kyros: Hurrah!
3 Lambert: {singing as they exit the tavern} The Road goes ever on and on! Down from the door where it began.
4 Alvissa: What's that?
4 Lambert: Traditional hobbit walking song.
4 Alvissa: Oh, I thought someone was strangling a cat...

I like taking walks.

My wife and I have a project this year, which is to walk the full length of every single street and pedestrian pathway in our local council area. That's every street and path on this map. As I type this (in August), we've covered roughly one third of them, marked with a highlighter pen on a printout of that map stuck to our fridge with magnets. (EDIT: Up to about half now.)

The plan is to complete the map by the end of 2011. We got off to a good start in the warm weather at the start of the year, but our pace has dropped off over our trip to South America in April/May, and now into the winter months when the weather is not conducive to long walks. So we'll have to pick up the pace as the weather gets warmer.

So many of our Sundays from now to the end of the year will be spent taking a long walk out to the outlying suburbs of the map, far from our home. We'll find a cafe or something out there and have a nice lunch, then set out on the way home again, taking care to circle and loop around all of the back streets along the way, walking down the dead-end streets and back out again, until we eventually mark off the last bit of pathway that can be walked in our council area.

Already, only a third of the way through this project, we've walked along streets we never new existed before, despite having lived in this area for 15 years. We've discovered parks we never suspected. We've found gorgeous views of Sydney Harbour that we never would have known about otherwise. We've visited historic old homes that belonged to famous authors or where there are interesting galleries or gardens. We've found wonderful new places to eat, or to grab a cold drink on a sunny day.

All within walking distance of where we live. And none of which we knew about before this year.

Next year, we're going to try the nearest adjoining council region.