It’s a new year -2018 – and that calls for a new challenge. So to get my blog going as well as my legs I am going to walk around the coast of Malta. I’ve actually been considering it since arriving her in September and I purchased a book – ‘

The Malta Coastal walk – a wonderful walk around the entire coast of Malta

I stuffed the book into my bag each day so I could dip into it and plan my trip whilst running around doing a million other things. On starting to read the book I realised that my greatest challenges would be:

1. Fitting a walk in around the school run. I am back from the school drop off at 8.15 on a good day and have to leave home to collect at 14.10… hmmm

2. My transport. Should I drive to each start point and then take taxis back to the car and drive home or bus it or just taxi it all the way (could get pricey when I get to the walks that are furthest away). Serious considerations given my limited time identified in point 1.

3. Given point 1 and 2 I started to think about the length of time it’s actually going to take me to complete this challenge The book has divided the coast into 13 walks. So great – it can be done in under two weeks! Oh but then I can’t really do weekends (children) and I have quite a bit going on in the week so probably I could do one and at a push maybe two walks a week.  Plus given my short day I think I will need to divide some of the walks into two walks…. could actually take some time.

Anyway, whilst pondering these factors I mislaid the book. I then spent several weeks looking for the book around the house (yes, you can start to get a picture of my life). Then having finally accepted it is lost this week (probably left in some random cafe) I then had to trail around bookshops trying to find another copy. And so far no luck. The first two bookshops were out of stock and waiting for a re-print (maybe it’s going to be busy on this walk).

However, I’m not giving up and despite this set back I’ve decided to start the walking without the book. If I don’t start this really will take forever. So, I’m starting with the easiest walks first so I won’t need the book. By easiest I mean they are in the most populated areas where it is easy to walk along and follow the coast and not get lost. Also the first walk is the easiest as I’m starting from the bit of coast closest to my house (thus alleviating the problems of transport and time).

Tomorrow I start from Spinola Bay (St Julian’s) and I will walk hopefully as far as the start of Valletta. Because I’m not really sure about how long it will take me to walk, my pace etc I don’t want to set an actual point to get to but I’ll try and get as far as possible. I know the first part of this walk pretty well and I’ve done it many times. Past the end of Silema will be new though. It’s easy terrain and the weather forecast is 18 degrees and sunny.

Perfect. What could go wrong?