Places we went
Morning Walk
I'm crying less today so far, though I woke and immediately though of Pegasus and started. Anyway,after I fed the cats I took Hallie and Bobby for a walk.
It seems easier to take them for a walk in the mornings and each day. Neither has a problem back leg and seem very healthy. Instead of a slow stroll that I had with Peggy for the last two years, it was a brisk jaunt. Of course neither dog was stopping much to leave their mark along the way, which Peggy did. And it was strange too in that only a quarter of the dogs that barked at Peggy and me barked at us on the way. maybe they don't have the new scent yet.
Where I walked Peggy
I used to take Pegasus on all manner of walks around Barnsley. When we first moved here I'd walk him twice a day up the street/back alley way and back again (solid red line). As I got adventurous I first decided to see where the gravel road at the end of Charlton St led (broken red line). Then we'd cut through the bush and horse paddocks behind us and around the shops back to Charlton St (cyan lines). When Peggy had grown fully, we go all manner of ways down bush tracks working our way around to Appletree and then Government Roads, and back again (all green lines).
After Peggy's leg injury started playing up, we went those ways (dotted green lines) less and less. Eventually we stuck to a much smaller set of routes (dashed & solid green lines). At the same time I started walking Pegasus much more down local streets, and less in the bush. I could vary the route quite a bit (all yellow lines) and make it shorter if I needed to. The longest route was up to Nelson St and then doubling back over the creek and then through the sports oval and horse paddocks (solid yellow line, and this was the route I took the dogs this morning). We started going that long route less and less this year.
There were many other routes that I walked Pegasus with while I had the car and could drive us there, but I'd need a much bigger map to show any of them. We walked down any number of vehicle and animal trails in the bush near here. We climbed and descended the mountain ranges here so many times I lost count. We would go to Wakefield, Freeman's Waterhole, Seahampton, Awaba, and Weston and walk the bush tracks near there. We would go a walkin' and meet friends and strangers in the process. We walked alone and with friends, both human and animal. As we walked, I could often feel the "spirits of place" as we walked through the bush. I felt the local ones liked us both, and I never worried about encountering poisonous animals while we walked, making sure at the same time that we left those areas as little disturbed as possible. Sometimes I took him to visit friends in Katoomba, and I would walk him at Parramatta Park, and other places as well.
The last few months had seen us use a much smaller range of routes (mostly solid green, cyan and solid red ones). When Peggy wasn't feeling very well, it was as much as he could do to get to within a hundred metres from our home and back (mauve lines). The last walk I had with him (last Monday) we went a bit of the way up Charlton St and home again.
I will miss my walks with him, but will continue to walk both Hallie and Bobby.