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First, a slight technical aside - I'm impressed that you had the opportunity to divert on that trip. Some of my most cherished travel moments have been when, u

by Jedd 6y ago

First, a slight technical aside - I'm impressed that you had the opportunity to divert on that trip. Some of my most cherished travel moments have been when, under no particular time constraints or schedule, I've been able to just do something interesting & random. At the risk of sounding churlish, I'm also impressed you were able to walk several hundred more miles in 4 days through a highly mountainous region that's ~500 x ~200 miles in size. (Of course, they'd have been using metric there - 800 x 200 km.) I imagine the area's mostly commons, as far as nomadic farmers are concerned, but they do sound like highly energetic cattle - hopefully they were dairy rather than meat breeds. Second, evolutionarily speaking I believe humans have adapted to groups (herds) of ~30, but we're all on various spectrums, including the need for social interaction. It's a nice idea that there's a tipping point that any of us could reach where solitude is exclusively sought, but my (anecdotal) experience is that there's plenty of people who, no matter how much time they may be forced to spend with their own thoughts, have no interest in embracing a primarily solo arrangement. I'm trying to guess your age - you mention people you knew from 30 years ago - so presumably you're 35+, but then you mention 'your own or other people's dads in their 50s' which implies a (conventional) upper limit of ~39. In which case I'm 10-15 years older than you, and can attest to a) a decreasing interest, or perhaps just available energy, in developing new friendships, but also b) an utter delight, absent the 'common struggle' that you think is a prerequisite, when I get to really & properly know someone over the space of many months, and despite subconscious protestations, am led to the ineluctable conclusion I have a new friend.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> I'm also impressed you were able to walk several hundred more miles in 4 days through to clarify: I stopped my hike to help the farmers and I left them after 4 days. I didn't walk several hundred miles in 4 days. 4 days was just the time of my stop ;) the journey / hike was planned to last for 2 months. there is a lot of distance you can cover if you plan to walk 20-30/km a day. altitude, weather etc doesn't make it any easier. I wrote about it here in case you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22256055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22256055 > hopefully they were dairy rather than meat breeds. dairy cattle, this is the setting I'm describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_transhumance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_transhumance ... you have usually some hut in the middle of nowhere often above the tree line with a "Halter" (keeper) looking after lifestock. Their job is to count the animals every day and make sure they haven't left the territory. The number of animals depends on how many farmers they have who give them the animals during the summer. These places usually also offer a shelter to hikers and mountaineers and are very common in the Alps. For me it was a great way to spend a few days to rest my legs and look after body hygiene (normally slept in the woods or any shelter I could build or find) > I'm trying to guess your age I'm pretty much your age.
- Jedd 6y ago
  Hehe - my scythe blade is from Styria, though I've never been there. (I had it shipped from Cornwall back to Australia many years ago.) That walk sounds tremendous, though well beyond my capabilities. Longest I've done is the Overland Track in Tasmania, Australia - and that was over 8 days (it can be done in 3). Were the cattle tagged or branded? It sounds like there's a huge non-fenced / unbounded area to try to track these beasts.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    cattle are tagged and I had lots of ideas about smart-agriculture and way to make the farmers (the "halters") job easier. mentioning these technologies to the people up there is not a good idea. it's not about making things easier for them or being "more productive", "carving out more time for other things", ... the chore is the point. it's part of this way of living. and once I spent some time with them I also agreed with them. if you bought the scythe it in Styria it would probably be a "Schroeckenfux"[1] ... nice gear!! It's also the best way to tend after the grass. You can also reach everywhere :) Styria was probably the best part in all the hiking. It has the densest and oldest forest in Austria and it is a little tiny bit more out of the way for tourism to reach it except Vienna. I spent nearly a 3 weeks there and did some extra tours criss-cross around the region because of how beautiful is there. Sadly never been to Tasmania. I did the backpacking thing back in the early 90ies, where coming from Indonesia I visited Perth, bought a car and then drove around the continent for a year. Best time of my life and only fond memories of Australians and how they welcoming they were. It was mind blowing to see such a culture difference for a stiff European and be warmly greeted even in the supermarket with "have a great day". Best memory of Australia (many good ones) was when I had a boat drop us off at one of the uninhabited Whitsunday islands just with enough water (and not enough food) and we camped near the beach. Monitor lizards eating our food (so after day 3 we hunted and ate them because fish wouldn't bite). We also tried to eat the lime color ants which we heard the Aboriginals would eat. (you won't get full from them) Totally nuts lol. [1] https://www.schroeckenfux.at/ https://www.schroeckenfux.at/

by Jedd 6y ago

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

> I'm also impressed you were able to walk several hundred more miles in 4 days through to clarify: I stopped my hike to help the farmers and I left them after 4 days. I didn't walk several hundred miles in 4 days. 4 days was just the time of my stop ;) the journey / hike was planned to last for 2 months. there is a lot of distance you can cover if you plan to walk 20-30/km a day. altitude, weather etc doesn't make it any easier. I wrote about it here in case you're interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22256055 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22256055 > hopefully they were dairy rather than meat breeds. dairy cattle, this is the setting I'm describing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_transhumance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_transhumance ... you have usually some hut in the middle of nowhere often above the tree line with a "Halter" (keeper) looking after lifestock. Their job is to count the animals every day and make sure they haven't left the territory. The number of animals depends on how many farmers they have who give them the animals during the summer. These places usually also offer a shelter to hikers and mountaineers and are very common in the Alps. For me it was a great way to spend a few days to rest my legs and look after body hygiene (normally slept in the woods or any shelter I could build or find) > I'm trying to guess your age I'm pretty much your age.

Jedd 6y ago
Hehe - my scythe blade is from Styria, though I've never been there. (I had it shipped from Cornwall back to Australia many years ago.) That walk sounds tremendous, though well beyond my capabilities. Longest I've done is the Overland Track in Tasmania, Australia - and that was over 8 days (it can be done in 3). Were the cattle tagged or branded? It sounds like there's a huge non-fenced / unbounded area to try to track these beasts.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  cattle are tagged and I had lots of ideas about smart-agriculture and way to make the farmers (the "halters") job easier. mentioning these technologies to the people up there is not a good idea. it's not about making things easier for them or being "more productive", "carving out more time for other things", ... the chore is the point. it's part of this way of living. and once I spent some time with them I also agreed with them. if you bought the scythe it in Styria it would probably be a "Schroeckenfux"[1] ... nice gear!! It's also the best way to tend after the grass. You can also reach everywhere :) Styria was probably the best part in all the hiking. It has the densest and oldest forest in Austria and it is a little tiny bit more out of the way for tourism to reach it except Vienna. I spent nearly a 3 weeks there and did some extra tours criss-cross around the region because of how beautiful is there. Sadly never been to Tasmania. I did the backpacking thing back in the early 90ies, where coming from Indonesia I visited Perth, bought a car and then drove around the continent for a year. Best time of my life and only fond memories of Australians and how they welcoming they were. It was mind blowing to see such a culture difference for a stiff European and be warmly greeted even in the supermarket with "have a great day". Best memory of Australia (many good ones) was when I had a boat drop us off at one of the uninhabited Whitsunday islands just with enough water (and not enough food) and we camped near the beach. Monitor lizards eating our food (so after day 3 we hunted and ate them because fish wouldn't bite). We also tried to eat the lime color ants which we heard the Aboriginals would eat. (you won't get full from them) Totally nuts lol. [1] https://www.schroeckenfux.at/ https://www.schroeckenfux.at/