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GOLDEN_ROAD

                                             August 30, 2019

A few details in the Saint story                        GOLDEN_JOURNEY
"Golden Journey" rang false to me,
and they made me wonder if Charteris
had himself ever done any real         GOLDEN_FOOD
hiking...

Reading more carefully and checking
over some details, I got a better
feel for the situation, and I think
I was being unfair.

   The distances and times seem to more or less check out, and
   Templar seems to be avoiding more extreme routes and staying
   on a trail without steep climbs-- and the territory it goes
   through is more "rustic" than wilderness, there are small
   villages with inns along the way.

Piecing together the route
discussed in the story:

Templar states he's going to start by taking a train to Lenggries
("cuts out the only dull part"), and travel to Innsbruck,
and afterwards continue "up over the Brenner pass into Italy".
His destination in Italy is Bolzano.

Checking some maps, the route described is roughly southward,
from Germany through Austria, and then into Italy:

   Lenggries
   Jenbach
   Innsbruck         We only make it as far as Innsbruck
   Brenner Pass      before the end of the story: the
   Bolzano           meeting place of Belinda and Jack--
                     where Templar has planned to return
                     Belinda's money and passport.

Templar's planned hike to Bolzano
could be over 100 miles, but the
journey to Innsbruck is probably      (I think there are longer routes
around 80km, or ~50 miles.            that go over a mountain top, but
                                      there's no indication of steep
                                      climbs in story, and many signs
                                      they're staying in more civilzed
                                      areas near roadways)


It would be just barely possible to walk 40 miles/day,
but I would expect more like 20 miles/day through rough
country.   Considering that the Saint is bringing an
amateur, and considering that the amateur recovers
along the way and decides she likes it, I would think
the average speed would be less than that.  There is
one mention of a day where they'd covered 20 miles--
I would think that was peak speed.

  So, I figured it might take them 4-5 days to
  do this, and in the story I see that on the
  morning of day 2, the Saint predicts they've     Also: there may have been
  got 6 more days ahead-- a relatively             many improvements to the
  leisurely pace, I think, but not excessively     trails since the 1930s, it
  so.  Roughly 7 days total, with some breaks      could be that my estimate of
  along the way.                                   80km is too low.

      Day 3: Templar estimated they covered 20 miles.
      
      Day 4: Belinda's conversion.  She wakes feeling 
             "no longer tired".








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