Monday, August 29, 2011

Day 139 - 17th August - Etna to Perking Brook - 15.5 miles

Karen drops us off back at the trail. There is some serious climbing today. Boss and Stucco catch us up around 10.00am having started in Hanover that morning. HD Mamma reappears and her husband provides soft drinks for trail magic on a side road, with north bounders (NOBOs) andn south bounders (SOBOs) sitting around together swapping tips.

In the mid afternoon we walk through a field and there is a signpost saying 'ice-cream' so we follow it to a house 50 metres away. Bill, the owner of the house presents us with a chocolate paddlepop and asks us to sign the register. He has collected signatures from every hiker both NOBO and SOBO who have stopped for an icecream. We are #410 and #411. There have been twelve hikers through that day. We have been hiking today with 'Red Hat', an older woman of 63, whose husband died in December. She has hiked many sections of the trail in previous years and this year is doing her version of a thru hike. She decides to stay and sleep at Bills house on the verandah with her hammock.

We leave her to it and start the climb up Lamberts Spur to the fire tower. We climb 1,000', find a small water source with a flat spot nearby and decide to call it a day as it is 6.00pm. The fire tower can wait until tomorrow.

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