The Shortcut

The most wonderful, and yet obvious, thing happened today.

Generally, unless I am completely lost, I never look at a map during my Adventures.

I prefer to explore new paths without necessarily knowing where they might take us.

Today, and this morning, I was adventuring in an area which is commonly referred to amongst the team as “Matt’s Secret Valley”.

As the name implies I have adventured here many many times before, as it is secluded and allows maximum freedom for my dogs.

At the very end of the Valley there is a tiny path which I always assumed led down to the houses 500 metres further on. I have never checked this on the map, and would always head off in a different direction, whenever time allowed to explore some adjoining areas.

I now realise quite how foolish it was to have not checked the map earlier. (Though I still respect my decision to not look at maps and explore the unknown freely).

This morning we took that little path. It meandered both horizontally and vertically as we followed it.

We never arrived at the expected properties. As it turns out they are much further down the hill.

But what we did come to was an area I know all too well. A fantastic, undulating playground in which the dogs jump, bounce and explore.

Without meaning to, I had found a shortcut between two fantastic areas for Dog Adventures.

What I had previously, and naively, assumed was a 20-minute detour via a more populated Walking Trail was now only five minutes away through the Secret Shortcut.

I can only compare my excitement at finding this out as to when they link two vast ski areas through a Cable Car (see Chamonix and Les Arcs – La Plagne as 2 separate examples of linking amazing “domains de ski”.

The new Secret Shortcut not only opens up both areas to the same adventure but also potentially reduces driving time and the need to start from a more isolated area.

Doggies: Kuling, My, Haraka, Ronja and Hedda