Day 24 Greymouth to Hokitika

Walked to day by Mike 42.4km, By Rapid 40.2km, by Ella 21km. 61448 steps.

The west coast has a reputation for rain, rain and more rain. Since leaving Westport on Wednesday there have been 3 showers, a couple of hours of overcast and lots of sunshine.

Today started cool and clear. Ut stayed clear but the coll soon gave way to warm. The Greymouth Barber was blowing down the Grey valley this morning when I left Greymouth branch accompanied by Sharon who walked with me to Paroa. About 2km after starting the road turned a corner and we were out of the cold wind. I put on the icebreaker gloves I had left behind in Nelson this morning and discovered some jelly beans in the envelope - thank you Karen.

Rapid clearly had tender feet this morning so I put his shoes on him at the first break at Gladstone. He walked much better until about 10k from Hokitika when he started biting at the front shoes. When I talk them off in Hokitika they had pulled fur on his feet again.

The walk went really well for the first 2 hours. I reached New River bridge a couple of minutes ahead of schedule. Crossing the Taramakau ROad Rail Bridge went moderately smotthly. 3 cars came onto the bridge even though I was walking down the middle but they stopped when the got to me so I only had to manouver passed a stopped car rather than a moving one. A van then came on from the other end and went very slowly so I was at the end of the bridge before it caught up with me.

I rounded the corner to Kumara Jaunction at 9:40 when I expected to be there at 10am. I thought I was way ahead of schedule but walking down that straight took for ever. I would have been a few minutes early but just before the junction I noticed Rapid had a shoe missing. I went back about 500m and didin't find it so aksed Alex to look for it. He drove the van slowly along and found it at the far end of the straight so I'm glad I didn't keep walking back looking for it. With fluffing around with Rapid's feet, going to the toilet, packing some food in case Alex took a long time to find the shoe, and then changing shoes again when it was found we were 25minutes late leaving Kumara Junction. I skipped the 20k rest stop to try and make up the lost time - I think this was a big mistake.

While we made up 5 minutes of time by Arahura I managed to loose that again between Arahura and Hokitika. Rapid was slow after Arahura and clearly uncomfortable. Ella also walked from Arahura. Even when I let the dogs off the lead Rapid would only run a very short distance before falling back into a walk. Ella would explore a little but Rapid just plodded on.

On the outskirts of Hokitika I was met by 2 people from Cancer Society and Julie from Hokitika Branch. It definitely lifted my spirits as I was feeling very tired. I had sore feet - just general overuse rather than blisters and my shin was hurting agin as well. The great thing was there was a sauage sizzle at Hokitika when I arrived that raised $149.20. The daffodil day collection by IT staff in Wellington of $1101.90 has now appeared in the Mike's Hike Account. The total raised now stands at $10,550.82 which is well ahead of what I expected at this stage. However the next week is through pretty much unpopulated territory so the donations will be thin. I think a lot of the success to my collecting on the West Coast is because of Lisa at Coast Fm who has been giving me good plugs.

I had a really gopod long rest at Hokitika - about an hour. In theory I still had 14km to do. I decided to do 4km and leave 10km fo tomorrow. I started out walking both dogs but I was fairly certain that once I got beyond the footpaths in Hokitika Rapid would need to go in the van as I didn't want to put his shoes on again as they were cuasing some discomfort by plucking hair. He was walking very gingerly crossing roods so as soon as we go to the end of the footpaths he went back in the van and I walked the remaining 2km with just Ella.

Tonight we are staying free of charge at the 252 Beachside Motel courtesy of Adele and Brian. The dogs are allowed in the unit but not on the furniture. I mention Ella and Rapid's tendency to hop on the beds at night so they have given me old blankets to cover the beds.

Last night after dinner at Katie and Dean's place the conversation turned to trips to Christchurch that had gone bad because of the snow. Kaite and Dean had neighbours Adele, Nancy and Dave to dinner. Nancy told about a time she was coming back from Christchurch with her children including a baby. At Klondike Corner she decided she needed to put the chains on. Alas they had changed cars and she had 14" chains and 15" wheels. While trying to fit the chains Nacy turned the headlights on as visibility was bad and she was frightened of someone hitting here or the car while she was improvising making the chains fit. When that was done she was unable to start the car so set out to walk 8km to Arthur's Pass to get help. The AA eventually arrived and took her back to her car which now started. Alas the road was now closed and they were forced to spend a cold night with no blankets at the Youth Hostel. Next morning Nancy started over the pass. One of the chains came off and wrapped around the axle. This slid the car into the bank. After removing the chain Nancy was able to proceed down the Otira side but had almsot no control so just kept bouncing the car off the bank. At the bottom of the Otira Gorge the tyre with the chains remaining blew out. After changing the tyre in very cold rain Nancy proceeded to Greymouth where she arrived about midday.

After dinner tonight I took the bucket around 3 hotels and collected another $100. The dogs slept in the van while I did that. Alex, having finished his book, watched movies - any excuse to not do his study.