Day 21 Berlins to Westport

Walked today 44.3km by Rapid & I. 17km by Ella 49272+ steps (Pedometer dangling from safety clip again)

This is the second day of the toughest week of the trip. I am now down to 8 toe nails. The first came off on Sunday and another today. I expect to lose them all over the next couple of weeks.

A late start today - 8am. The first 5km went really quickly and I managed 5.5km in the first hour including dropping Ella off in the van. The road from Berlins is pretty much flat with only minor undulations. The Buller Marathon runs between Berlins and Westport. The weather started out misty but no rain actually falling. It was quite warm so I was wearing just a tee shirt, shorts and parka. At lunch time I added over-trousers when the rain started to fall.

There were 2 major obstacles on todays section - Hawk's Crag and Fern Arch are one lane sections of the road. Hawk's Crag has fairly good visibility and works on a give way system. Fern Arch has no visibility from one end to the other and is controlled by traffic lights. On Hawk's Crag Alex drove ahead and stopped the van in the middle of the road at the other end. Nothing was coming either way so no problems at all. Straight after the first break I came to Fern Arch. Alex stayed close ahead of me during the really narrow bit and then went ahead to the lights to stop anything coming the other way if the changed. 3 cars came through in the same direction I was going but were able to get by OK.

After that Alex left me and Rapid to keep walking and went off to confirm the jet boat from Buller Adventure Tours to take me from Nine Mile Creek to Nine Mile Road on the Westport side of the Buller River. During the time he was doing this Rapid & I had to cross the Ohikanui River. A coal truck crossed the bridge at the same time we were crossing. The bridge was shaking and Rapid freaked out and tried to jump away from the edge into the path of the truck. Fortunately I had him on a short lead and all that happened was he turned sideways. He really struggled the rest of the way across the bridge. That was the last significant bridge of the day so I don't know if he has reverted permanently to old form, or it was just this once.

Alex decided he wanted to ride in the jet boat so he dropped Ella off with me 3km before Nine Mile Creek and went off down the river. I had to wait about 40 minutes at Nine Mile Creek for the boat. I had to wade in - fortunately I had considered this possibility and changed out of my walking shoes. I also had a dry pair of socks for the walk afterwards. Rapid seemed quite relaxed in the boat but Ella cowered down on the floor. Both dogs clambered up the bank at a great speed on the other side where the water was deep close in so I could jump from the boat to the bank. The boat man had got his reckoning right and we were very close to Nine Mile Road once I got up the bank. There was water in a ford on the road so I got Alex to drive me those few metres. Alex got to the road so quickly it would have been much easier to have had Alex drive me from Nine Mile Creek to the end of Nine Mile Rd rather than take the boat.

The railway crosses Nine Mile Road 3 times in a short distance. Nine Mile Rd is straight while the railway curves a bit to ease the gradient on the slopes. There were Kiwi Rail crew working on the tracks and I think they were a little surprised when Rapid, Ella and I appeared from nowhere. Some of the coal trucks that had been tooting at me in the gorge wher also using the town end of Nine Mile Rd, probably a little surprised to see me there.

I was half an hour late getting to ANZ Westport. With one staff member short they werer very busy and I never got to chat with the staff. After an interview with Sonia from The News in Westport Alex and I went out to the crossroads and started putting in some distance for tomorrow. This was absolutely necessary as I just don't believe I could manage 56km except on the day after a rest day. I walked 10.8km so this makes tomorrow a similar size to the days I did last week.

After dinner Alex and I did a walk around the pubs in Westport. Yes my feet are now good enough that I can contemplate walking 2km that wasn't planned. We visted 4 pubs and the RSA and collected well over $100 so I was very pleased with the days effort.