Day 67 Ashburton to Dunsandel

Walked today by Mike & Rapid 38.5km 50075 steps Walked by Ella 17.2km

Total distance walked 2278km Funds Raised $20.391.08
I tried to persuade people at the Mid Canterbury agility to walk with me from town to th showgrounds but there were no takers.

Following my written instructions to get across town I came to the last step - turn right into Brucefield Ave and the showgrounds weren't ahead of me. It turns out that Brucefield Ave turns left at the corner of Kitchener St then right to the showgrounds. I arrived as planned about 5 minutes before the first course walk. I ran Rapid on the Novice course just before judging started. We got a clear round. Just as well it wasn't being timed as Rapid was rather slow especially on the contacts.

The road out of Ashburton has a big wide verge for the first 5 km. I was about half way along that when a woman stopped on the other side of the road, I thought she was going to give a donation. After several gaps where I would have thought she could have driven across the road I thought she wasn't going to so I sat Ella and Rapid. Just then she drove across and straight past me across the verge. When I walk up to the car she asked me to move my dogs because she parks under the tree they were sitting in front of every day to walk her dogs.

Ella walked as far as Dromore where I took the first break. I was a few minutes ahead of schedule leaving the showgrounds but clearly I wasn't walking fast enough as I didn't make up any more time. Ngaire found good bacon and egg pie today.

It was raining when we were packing but by the time I was walking it had stopped. The grass was still wet and I got wet feet. After Dromore I walked on the road and by Chertsey my feet were dry again. The cemetary in Chertsy looked like a good place to stop for lunch but I had told Ngaire and Ted to move on 3km so the lunch break finished up being at the railway crossing where there wasn't much room for the dogs to run around. An interesting observation is that the rabbits along SH1 have learned to run away from the road.

By the time we got to Rakaia I had really had enough of the heavy traffic and I was glad that was the last I had to worry about it. After having afternoon tea in the salmon place we drove across the Rakaia bridge. Early tomorrow morning I will walk across the bridge when the traffic is light.

Main Rakaia Rd is fairly narrow with no shoulder. There is a grass verge but in many places the grass is too long to walk on it. After Rapid & I crossed the road from the van he couldn't remember to walk along the couple of inches of road between the white line and the grass. There was a milk tanker coming so I put him back on the lead for a few minutes until her remembered how.

The last 6.8km were along Selwyn-Rakaia Rd. It is a gravel road with really good grass verges. It also has a good number of pine trees on one side that provided Rapid with pine cones to play with. One farm had an irrigator that was over a kilometre long. The traffic was very different from the main road - 3 cars in the 90 minutes I was walking along it.