When the paths reach out far ahead, with no clear end, I find myself pushing on, head down, just trying to get to a bend. I had to stop myself, and gradually became aware of a soundscape which punctuated the journey. The constant flow of water alongside me, the occasional burble of an eddy, a big splash as something large heard me coming and dived in, the belch and bass rumble of frogs, the screech of swifts and the anxious squeaks of some large water bird wheeling over the fields. I saw heron and white egret, and some black and white ibis stalking through the glassy water.
And an interesting tractor. Rubber tyres are presumably not much help in these fields.
The only way through is on the dykes, which sometimes means there's no straight path from a to b, and any crow would have done it in half the time, but there was time to understand that it must feel like living on an island when the fields are flooded.
And so into Vercelli, where I was kindly kidnapped by a friendly man and taken to the pilgrim hostel for my stamp, and a multilingual chat with two Via volunteers and a Frenchman whose footprints along the path had been my only sight of another human for much of the day.
Interesting Wheels on the tractor bet they can't go round n round like the wheels on the bus go round n round round n round 🙄😉🤣
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