Barefooting

This is a road...sort of.

This is the way I see much of the world. I have lived several places but in most cases I was 7 miles or more from the nearest artificial light except for my own. This is due east of the largest town in this part of the country. Ponca City, I think it is about 20k and dominates the region, much of this land is way less then 1 person per sq mile. I travel maybe 8 miles on this road to get to the intersection, that road is a little better, it is dirt and gravel.

004-1.jpg

008-1.jpg

007-1.jpg

006-1.jpg

002-2.jpg

001-1.jpg
 
Clarification: I advocate walking barefoot wherever a considered and rational evaluation can conclude that shoes are not physically necessary. Clearly when there are alien obstacles of evil strewn about the ground, that conclusion can not be reached.
 
Kier said:
Clarification: I advocate walking barefoot wherever a considered and rational evaluation can conclude that shoes are not physically necessary. Clearly when there are alien obstacles of evil strewn about the ground, that conclusion can not be reached.
Click to expand...

Agreed!
 
jonsidneyb said:
This is a road...sort of.

This is the way I see much of the world. I have lived several places but in most cases I was 7 miles or more from the nearest artificial light except for my own.
Click to expand...

I think your sorta stuck unless if you go with some of those five fingers that have some sort of soul on them to help protect your feet some.
 
Dragonfly said:
This is Australia Kier.. not your soft and gentle mamby pamby Brit stuff.. we are talking deadly critters and roads so rough you need a 4WD to get to the shops :p lol
.
.
.
.
Not really that bad, I lived most of my life in pretty upmarket areas of Sydney, but I wouldn't really want to walk on the footpaths barefooted!!!
Click to expand...

I have always wondered what the land is really like there rather then what is on the travel and vacation guides :)

I imagine it is a notch rougher than here, our spiders are bigger but yours have more venom. Also our snakes are polite enough to rattle a warning to you while yours don't. I am going to guess the land itself is about equal in roughness but I could be wrong.
 
Suitability evaluation: Southern England
  • Venomous spiders: none
  • Venomous snakes: one, mild, extremely rare
  • Poisonous flora: rare, well known
  • Landscape: primarily urban, woodland, meadow
  • Climate: temperate, maritime though relatively cold winters
  • Shoe police: minimal
Suitability for everyday life without footwear: excellent.
 
I think there is this false impression I got from some movie in the 60's or 70's. London was very foggy and people were coughing and such. The fog looked so think you could barely see across the street.

Since there is a line of clothing called London Fog as well I figured London was foggy and damp much of the time. I am far from any ocean but since you are in an island nation the fog I thought made sense.
 
jonsidneyb said:
sandbur2.jpg


I discovered I have sandburs.
Click to expand...
I hate those. There's plenty that grow around my house, and getting hit with those from the lawn mower is not a fun experience. :( Even though I wear jeans they still manage to stick me.

Today I was just digging to move some roses around, and found plenty of glass that resides naturally in my dirt. Not running around my backyard barefoot any time soon either. :p
 
Onimua said:
I hate those. There's plenty that grow around my house, and getting hit with those from the lawn mower is not a fun experience. :( Even though I wear jeans they still manage to stick me.

Today I was just digging to move some roses around, and found plenty of glass that resides naturally in my dirt. Not running around my backyard barefoot any time soon either. :p
Click to expand...
UGH I hate those. As kids we called 'em stickers. The adults called them sandspurs. Whatever they are, they HURT. :(
 
jonsidneyb said:
I thought it was foggy and wet and that you could get sick easy there.

Looking up somthing.
Click to expand...

The trouble with the british weather is that it's very erratic. We can get really hot summers and cold winters. Not only this each day can swing from the previous day and we can have cold/wind/warmth/rain all in one day so I always came to the thought that we were constantly trying to adapt to inconsistent weather. It be a whole lot easier if we either had consistent cold or hot weather. Personally this is why many people get the flu come down with the common colds constantly here in the uk. Of course I could be be wrong in that assumption.

With regards to barefooting. I'm now on 6th day, tomorrow will be 1 week. I have to admit, I not feeling at all great but I doubt that s down to my barefooting experiences though around this time of year this is when people start to become ill in their masses with colds and such. It may even be 5 days though I'm sure it's 6 and I started last wednesday. ;)
 
Kier said:
Clarification: I advocate walking barefoot wherever a considered and rational evaluation can conclude that shoes are not physically necessary. Clearly when there are alien obstacles of evil strewn about the ground, that conclusion can not be reached.
Click to expand...

This is about my philosphy on barefooting too! :D


jonsidneyb said:
I have always wondered what the land is really like there rather then what is on the travel and vacation guides :)

I imagine it is a notch rougher than here, our spiders are bigger but yours have more venom. Also our snakes are polite enough to rattle a warning to you while yours don't. I am going to guess the land itself is about equal in roughness but I could be wrong.
Click to expand...

Reality is that 90% of Australians live a very urban life in one of the cities that hug the coastal fringe all around the nation, you can still see deadly nasties, I have seen plenty of Funnel Web Spiders and a few times I have seen Brown and Black snakes in the suburbs, but unless you live in a fringe suburb surrounded by bush the danger from deadly critters in the actual cities is not so bad.

The interior or outback is very rough and rugged, and yeah our snakes are not very polite, as Anthony Parsons said earlier in this topic, Taipans will bite and bite and bite until you don't move anymore, and so will Tiger snakes, we have a lot of venomous snakes, but forunately we also have antivenin for them, so the actual death rate is pretty low.

As a tourist you would be unlikely to encounter any of these things however, all my overseas friends and family who have visited Australia have loved it.
 
Well so much for my idea to move to Australia should things continue to go south here. I'm deathly afraid of snakes. As in, I'd probably die of a heart attack before they even had a chance to bite me. :confused:
 
Spiders, snakes, scorpions, or anything that is smaller than me and faster, and jumps or bites me as first response .. no thanks.
 
Peggy said:
Well so much for my idea to move to Australia should things continue to go south here. I'm deathly afraid of snakes. As in, I'd probably die of a heart attack before they even had a chance to bite me. :confused:
Click to expand...


Move to New Zealand instead, no biteys there :p

Like everywhere, the greatest danger here in Australia is from humans and human activities - we don't actually have snakes popping up all over the place, nor do kangaroos hop down the streets :p hehehe

And fortunately we have no large carnivores (other than sharks) so you are less likely to be food here :p
 
While we have things that bite....still the biggest reason my barefoot attempt was not successful was not the creatures. Even without stickers a spiny plants are the rocks. I have not seen many places where natural ground was not really hard on the feet. Maybe it is that we don't give feet the years it takes to toughen up anymore. The soil is full of crystals and jagged rocks.

I do not know this to be true but I am going to assume that ground with no pointy stones and things like that is a man made thing? Some beaches are for sure barefoot friendly.

I have a theory. I think I once read that something like 80% of the human population is within 100 miles of an ocean. If this is true maybe at one time it was 90%. Perhaps humans when from tree climbers to sand walkers and the shoe started to allow humans to walk where they were not properly adapted. The we have civilization where instead of humans adapting the humans force the land to adapt. The ground is altered, sifted, fine soil added and so on making it less lumpy and jagged.
 
Dragonfly said:
Move to New Zealand instead, no biteys there :p

Like everywhere, the greatest danger here in Australia is from humans and human activities - we don't actually have snakes popping up all over the place, nor do kangaroos hop down the streets :p hehehe

And fortunately we have no large carnivores (other than sharks) so you are less likely to be food here :p
Click to expand...

In some areas frightened plant eaters are a bigger danger. People who have encountered many moose in the wild try and stay away from them. We do not have moose here but I understand they have even gone into small towns and have attacked people.
 
Dragonfly said:
Move to New Zealand instead, no biteys there :p

Like everywhere, the greatest danger here in Australia is from humans and human activities - we don't actually have snakes popping up all over the place, nor do kangaroos hop down the streets :p hehehe
Click to expand...

I read that the county that I am in once had a 75 year period of time with only one murder. It is either the humans here are not dangerous or we don't have enough of them to get a good statistic.
 
Top Bottom