That was quite the wild weather we had last Saturday, wasn’t it?
To be clear, I’m not complaining about the rain, because we need it. Still, I have been trying to go for a walk every day, so on Saturday I was keeping my eye on the sky, as I wanted to fit in my usual walk along Evans Road. The rain came and went, but finally, around 5 p.m., the skies cleared (somewhat), the rain stopped, and a watery sunshine broke out, so I laced up my shoes and set out.
It’s 3.7 kilometres from my office door to the gate at the end of Evans Road, and for the first part of my outward-bound walk it was fine. Shortly after I passed the halfway mark, however, a few drops of rain began to fall, and a glance at the sky confirmed that the clouds were gathering in truly apocalyptic fashion.
Still, I kept going, on the basis that a few drops of rain wouldn’t kill me. And then, with no warning, the skies opened, and the rain went from sprinkle to torrent in the blink of an eye.
I really should have turned back then, but within the space of a minute I was pretty thoroughly wet, and the end of the route was almost in sight, and a certain perverse stubbornness kicked in. I was so close; I wasn’t going to let a bit of rain stop me, dammit!
On I trudged, getting wetter by the second, until I was at the gate. Usually I sit on the cement blocks there for a couple of minutes, have some water, watch the ospreys, and listen to the river, but this day I simply turned around without pausing and headed back.
The thing about that walk is that just as it’s 3.7 kilometres from the office to the gate, it’s precisely the same distance in reverse, only now I was walking through a raging downpour. There was a steady drip-drip-drip of raindrops off the brim of my baseball cap, and I was soaking wet; the last time I had been that wet while getting some exercise I was actually swimming in a pool.
Worse was to come, however. A third of the way back, a torrent of water was pouring down the hillside to my left, and about a half-inch of muddy water was fanning out across the road. I splashed through, but not much further along I heard, over the sound of the audiobook I was listening to (Lucy Worsley’s biography of Agatha Christie; highly recommended), a sound like a mini-Niagara Falls.
There was a thick, dark, raging torrent of water and mud pouring down the hillside. It had spread across the entire road and was probably 30 feet wide; I had no idea how deep it was, but I had no alternative but to cross it.
My right foot immediately sank ankle-deep into the gumbo. I kept going. The gumbo got deeper. My feet squelched wetly inside my shoes. The gumbo was now well above my ankles. I briefly wondered what would happen if I lost my balance and got caught in the current. The answer was not reassuring. I kept going, and was very glad to hit terra firma on the far side of the slide.
I fished my phone out of my pocket and called someone on the village crew, advising that whoever was on duty should check out the situation on Evans Road. (They did, and spent several hours digging it out; thank you!) As I continued walking, I calculated that the road in that spot had gone from bare and dry to raging mudslide in less than 25 minutes.
When I got back to the office I looked like I’d been mud-wrestling. It took me half-an-hour to clean up and get dry. The moral of the story? When Mother Nature suggests she’s getting serious, listen to her. And if you’re going to get soaked while exercising, swimming is much more fun.
