Saying farewell to a rucksack that you've carried for 10,000 km is a wrench. When setting off on a trip that first feeling of the bag on my back is like firing the starting gun for an adventure. I've got so used to it, I know where everything goes and together we've developed a system which works. Not quite on its last legs it has, however, started to show its age. My wife claims that it smells and if I'm going to avoid offers of loose change as I wander through towns I have to accept that I need to smarten up.
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| Osprey Exos 44 at rest in Hungary |
I was first introduced to my Osprey Exos 46 three and half years ago as I set off on my 5,000km trip from Tarifa, on the south coast of Spain,
to Budapest. Since then we've crossed Spain three more times, walked the Apennines in Italy, bashed our way through Bulgaria, crossed the Alps twice and been on numerous trips to France and various parts of the UK. In three and a half years the
Exos has been clamped to my back for at least 300 days.
