40.3km - 52977 steps (that includes toileting the dogs before the walk and after dinner.
Christchurch put on a fine day. There was a good frost at Mandeville. The city had thick fog which lifted about 9am.
Hugh Bowron, Jane from Cancer Society Angela and Wayne Tippett were waiting for me at Riccarton. After I got myself organised Hugh did a blessing and I was on my way with Paul working with me. Halfway through Hagley Park I realised I had dropped the route notes so Paul went back and found them a couple of hundred metres from the start. I let the dogs run free through Hagley Park.
First stop was Sydenham branch of National Bank. Sydenham is mostly a demolition site with islands of buildngs remaining. Then on to Fitzgerald Avenue. Crossing Wordsworth St there was a small gap in the traffic so I decided to run through. Ella got in my way and I stepped on here left rear left fairly hard. 6km into the walk and I thought I had an injured dog but after 2 minutes she decided it was alright to walk on.
They had signs on all the teller stations saying I would be calling today. The staff also dug fairly deeply into their pockets for donations to.
Then I began the 7km walk to New Brighton. Normally Rapid likes to rink out of puddles but with the smell going along Pages Rd I decided that wouldn't be a good idea. At one point the sewerage was being pumped along the road through a flexible hose which was leaking and there was water and who knows what else about 5cm deep on the footpath.
The staff from New Brighton Branch set out the meet me at the bridge on Pages Road but I beat them by about 2 minutes so we met just on the New Brighton side of the roundabout. Leonora had made scones so I lunched on scones with jam and cream. Pat the Christchurch South sales coach walked with me from New Brighton to Papanui. Because The Palms is still closed and Pat new the way so we skipped a loop, where Paul was waiting for me with a muesli bar and a drink. Pat also knew another short cut. That and walking a little faster because I had company we finished up 10 minutes ahead of schedule by the time we reached Papanui Rd. Paul found us in Papanui Rd and handed over a couple of muesli bars, and a drink that I didn't want then but did by the time I got to Papanui.
I had called Paul from New Brighton and asked him to picked up Ella at Papanui. By the time wee got to Papanui she was really tired and just lay down right in the middle of the branch. Paul had to lift her up into the cage. However after a couple of hours sleep she was right as rain.
As I was running early I made an unscheduled stop at ANZ Papanui. The 40 minutes spent in the branches had let my legs stiffen up so it took 10 minutes to free them up again when I started walking. When we got to the start of the Motorway at Belfast and had to turn off (33.3km) Rapid still had enough spare energy to play stick.
The walk across Old Waimakiriri River bridge went well. Paul drove behind me. The traffic were well behaved, and waited happily for a chance to pass, and even the on coming traffic slowed down when they saw us. There is a poster in the back window of the van and 2 people stopped at the end of the bridge to give donations - I think if the van drove behind me all the way I would get more money. However it would take a lot of the pleasure out if it.
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