雪梨是個美麗城市,歌劇院,港灣大橋,壯闊的雪梨港,幾乎是澳洲的代名詞。雪梨的美當然不只限於觀光景點,深度的街道探索才能細細品味,但是雪梨腹地遼闊,要走遍是不可能的任務吧!在搜尋資料的偶然間,發現了這一個網站,Walk Sydney Streets,一位名叫 Alan Waddell的老先生,從 2003年到 2008年九月,在94歲高齡結束人生旅程之前,每天不間斷地,走遍雪梨 291區的每一條街道,拍下 2900多張照片,紀錄漫步街頭的動人時刻。
When my wife of 60 years died in November 2002, I knew that I had to somehow keep going. I started walking some streets in my home suburb, but soon found this a little boring and switched to neighbouring suburbs. It just grew from there.
I walk every day unless it is too hot or too wet. Perhaps I miss about 30 days a year. My average walking time would be 85 minutes, including a one-minute stop every seven minutes to let my leg aneurysm catch up. For May 2005, my pedometer showed an average walk of 4.1km per day, but now my average is just under 3km a day.
I’ve never felt threatened. This doesn’t mean that a threat or assault won’t happen some day, but 5,000km of incident-free walking suggests that Sydney compares well as a safe city.
One of my sons drives me to the suburb I’m doing and if there is a steep hill, he drives me to the top and I walk back down. Another son created and maintains the web site.
我一個兒子載我到要走的區域,如果那裡有陡坡,他會載我到高處讓我走下來。另一個兒子幫我維護網站。
How do you keep track of what you’ve done?
你如何紀錄已完成的進度?
My son types the name of every street, lane, park path, etc on the computer and plots a course. As each street is finished, it is deleted from the list of what is still to be done and it is highlighted on the street directory map.
我兒子把每一條街道,公園小徑輸入電腦,規劃路線。走完一條街,就從街道名單上劃掉,在地圖上做記號。
You don't seem to walk in alphabetical or area order. What determines where you walk?
您好像不是按照字母順序走,怎麼決定哪裡走呢?
I like to have quite a few suburbs in progress at any one time for variety. In the hot months I do coastal suburbs to get the sea breeze. On fine days or at times of the year when I don't have much else happening I do distant suburbs. If there are things that must be done that day or I have an appointment that I must get back for, I do closer suburbs. The nearest ones to home I do on rainy days so that if I get wet it's not long before I can get home to change into dry clothes. On weekends I usually do industrial areas and highways or other busy roads.
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後記:這是我六年前(18/03/2015)寫的文章,回顧舊文,也發現 Alan爺爺的網頁一直有在更新,不斷地有新照片貼上來,瀏覽 Walk Sydney Streets 就像在雪梨散步一樣。這幾年來,我開始參加路跑,也養成在自家附近慢跑的習慣,雖然次數不頻繁,一周頂多兩次,每次跑步的時候稍稍變化一下路線,真的會有小驚喜出現,就算都跑同一條路,春夏秋冬,晴時多雲,沿途景色也有新面貌。真的,能到處走走,真好