Hobart has great access to amazing national parks and hiking trails, as well as cold, wet winters that turn those trails into freezing streams that quickly soak through socks and joggers. So I bought myself these boots and I started walking. In re-discovering my childhood love of the outdoors I re-discovered myself. I got out of a marriage that was destroying me, I moved to a tiny cottage, got seriously into gardening and started seriously becoming the person I’d always wanted to be.

In 2012 I set off for a travel adventure in South America, and my boots carried me from the coastal bohemia of Valparaiso to the desert dust of San Pedro de Atacama and up into the spectacular Andean mountains around Cusco, where I fell in love with Peru as well as a certain Peruvian. Eight months later my boots came back to Cusco with me to follow my heart, and spent many happy hours travelling the cobble streets of the Inca capital, and working in the veggie garden of the orphanage where I was teaching the girls basic food-growing skills.

Back home again in Hobart my boots helped me to keep sane on weekend hikes through snow, mud, dust and rain, while I figured out how to live with my heart on the other side of the world, and in September 2013 they were on my feet as I flew back to Peru yet again, to take up a year-long position working in environmental management here in Lima, my stomach full of butterflies and my heart all over the place.

The guy and I couldn’t make it work, in the end, but the boots and I are still going strong. We’ve trekked up to 4 800 mASL in the Cordillera Blanca, we’ve visited ruins from long-vanished cultures.For the princely sum of 20 Nuevo Soles (about $8 US) I got the holes worn through by my heels patched and my patched-up boots were on my feet again when my patched-up heart and I wandered through Cusco again recently and shared a moment of healing with a man I’ll always, always remember.

They’re almost 6 years old now and they’ve covered a lot of ground, but there’s life in my old boots yet. They’ve outlived three pairs of pricey hiking sneakers and I’ve learnt that no-one can bring out the shine in them like a Peruvian street boot boy. At the end of my project here in Lima I’m hoping we can adventure together through Patagonia for one more grand South American adventure before I head back to Tasmania and work out just what comes next in my life. These boots are my freedom, my adventurous spirit, the wonders I’ve seen and the paths I’ve chosen to tread. Dear old friends who’ve never left a blister, their passing will be mourned, though long may they live on as planters in a happy garden somewhere.

Or expressing that we’ve known it all along.

Smart B.’s boots

smartbsolutions– ...here I am am admiring your perfect cowboy boots – never even have seen a cowboy bending over a branding fire  and obviously never even owned a pair of such beauties. But still I wanted to share a little story about my boots that involve my husband. The boots that are my all time favorite are a pair of brown leather beauties, made in Portugal and with a most bizarre zipper clothing in the back – they are high and stylish and from the first day I bought them absolutely perfect fit. I have been wearing them for 6 years now (in winter season only). They are part of the story how I met my husband in the Brussels airport back in 2008. That day I had my brown boots on (have just bought them) and a brown leather coat, it was a perfect sunny morning in January and I was driving my friend to the airport. We ladies, have had a couple of drinks the night before to celebrate our last evening together before she is heading back home and of course we were late and totally stressed so I hardly remember the way from my apartment to the airport, but we made it and she headed off to her gate and me I headed out the sliding door of the airport in the sun looking down admiring my then still brand new leather boots I felt such a relief and so happy at the same time – also to see the sun and my beauties and how great I looked wearing them and then, boom, boom, boom, several heavy suitcases are rolling off the trolley and land right next to my boots. I didn’t even look,  just tried to pick up the closest of those heavy bags thinking “Thank God they didn’t scratch my boots!” and right then I hear a very deep voice of a man telling me: “That’s ok, I can handle this, thank you!” Well I had to look up to see who is so rudely refusing my help and there he was trying to pick up all his luggage and stuck it back up on the trolley smiling at me. Well, we started talking and the rest is history! we’ve been together since and this August will be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary:) I just felt I needed to share this story about how just a pair of boots become part of such a romantic memory. And btw our cat Trigger also loves those boots in his own way. He has managed to “personalize” them twice to show me that he doesn’t like it when I go out and don’t take him with me:) 

They’ve walked you down the aisle and hung on as you rode across the country on the back of a motorcycle:

I would like to say that my favorite boots are my wedding boots that are so scuffed, my husband bought my me new “should be” favorite snip toed, wing tipped boots. But they aren’t. They aren’t even my fabulous Corral boots, that a sales lady at the only “western” store we could find in the Minneaplis area, thought were “vintage”… I’ll take that as a compliment! I can’t even say my favorites are my most fabulous Muck Boots anyone has seen because I “girlified” them with some awesome fuzzy boot covers that my mother in law gave me for Christmas one year.
I have to say that my favorite pair of boots are a pair that I havn’t purchased yet.
I believe my favortie boots are going to be the 1st pair of boots that my Little Blessing, Ellie, wears. For some reason, out of all the cute clothes and gifts that she’s recieved, we havn’t recieved a pair of boots yet. I’m thinking it’s because that’s something that her and I are going to get to share together. Maybe our Bestie-Jessie will even be able to join us in the fun… and to Jake’s dismay, pass on our love for a good pair of boots… For every occasion!

Mandy’s Australian Boots (via Facebook)