Day 9 - Deep Gap to Hiawassee - 3.5 miles

We depart early for the push to the highway. A steep climb between us and the highway comes as a surprise. We meet a dog on the trail, all alone, with a radio aerial on its collar. You are allowed to hunt in these forests, but where is the owner?

We are met at the highway by a young guy in a truck soliciting rides to town fo $7. We load into the back of his truck which is surrounded by a homemade wooden fence. We wait until the 'Babes in the Woods' arrive - Crafty and Samantha - they join us in the back. Samantha is laughing her head off, and asks us to take a photo .She says 'My parents would die if they could see me  now.'

Alison and Samantha in the back of the ute

Pick up vehicle with the wooden trellis on the back. Is this legal in the US??

We have a breezy ride down the mountain to Hiawassee. We are dropped at the local motel - The Hiawassee Inn - very basic rooms with a dampish smell. It seems like paradise! We book two nights.

The guy at the desk tells us that Mike Krause was here yesterday looking for us, to leave our mobile phone. We head to the post office to see if he has left it there. No. And here follows an amazing story of trail magic. The postmaster - Brenda - lends us her mobile phone to call Mike but they are not answering. So we go off to an 'All you can eat' buffet at 'Daniels', as in the lions den. It is a Christian restaurant - we find ourselves in an amazing southern experience. On the way back Brenda finds us - she has been driving up and down the road looking for us. She tells us our mobile phone is at Mulls Motel. We go there and find a really old lady in a room heated to really high temperatures. She gives us our phone and we pay her $5 for the trouble. She is very happy. We ring Mike and Therese on our new phone. We speak to Mike. The phone works. We are happy.

We buy the local newspapers to get a feel for the town. Two stories in the paper catch our eye. The story of a local woman who has been overseas for major dental work to Vietnam, and to India because she cannot afford it in the USA. The other story - a  family begging for money to help pay hospital bills of their elderly father in intensive care for a month. They have set up a special bank account and publish the details for people to make deposits. At a federal level Obama is trying to get his new health reforms through. We thank our lucky stars that we are Australian.

We visit the library to use the internet and discover that we have missed 'Boomer' by 15 minutes.

Back at the motel we meet 'Diesel ' - he has Parkinsons Disease and is walking the trail for a month. His shakes are fairly bad. I help him stuff his tent into the bag and ask him why he is called Diesel. He says 'slow to start, but once I'm running I can go forever.'