By Elliot

Distance: 26km

I didn’t sleep so well last night. Truthfully, I rarely sleep well in the tent, but it doesn’t seem to affect my enjoyment of the day. But last night, I decided to get up and go outside to pee, which is an ordeal. And it led to a moment where I felt so lucky and happy to be on the trail. As I unzipped the tent and stepped outside, the night sky was clear and the stars bright, beautiful and numerous. I was cold, but lingered outside the tent for longer than I had to, all to enjoy the night sky.

Our walk today was quite monotonous. It started with 15km of gravel road, which changed to pavement for the last 11km. The road wasn’t ugly or too busy, but it got boring after the gravel road. It didn’t help that, for the first time in a while, it was sunny and warm all day.

The most fun we had today was seeing a few sheep that had escaped from who knows where, running away from us as we kept walking in their direction. At one point, they forgot they were trying to escape and started eating grass, before remembering that they should be running.

We are staying at a motel tonight with our own kitchen, so I made sure to cook and pack in as many veggies as possible. We also had the opportunity to use a laundry machine. Often, doing laundry means using whatever hand soap is at our disposal and trying to rub it into a garment in a sink before rinsing. With our socks, sometimes rinsing and wringing several times is not enough for the water to run clear: the mud and dirt is just that deeply embedded. So we are thankful when we get to use a laundry machine.