7
Walked by Mike 741km by Idol 471.5km by Toby 364.6km. Funds raised $7940 plus some more in the bucket waiting to be banked..
I think the cafe at Mahia which si open only 6am to 9am must have a Vodafone booster as I get data coverage in the morning but not at night - so this written offline in the evening and then posted first thing.
The morning
started with a walk in the dark around the local streets. Toby’s flashing
light was moving here there and everywhere at great speed.
I had
Priscilla’s home made muesli for breakfast and then all to quickly it was time
to be heading out. Walking started in gloomy weather – very low cloud and about
20 minutes into the walk there was a very hard shower lasting about 15 minutes.
From time to time during the day there was more light rain but long fine
periods between.
There is a
narrow bridge at Tahaenui where Pankaj had to drive behind me. It isn’t very
long but in the approx. 200 metres of approach and across the bridge quite a
lot of traffic built up behind us.
Publicity
has paid off with several people stopping to give donations including one woman
I remember giving a donation on the road out of Gisborne last year. She
commented that it was nice to see me back on the road again.
About 1km
into the walk was a very long paddock (about 1km) with a herd of young beef
cattle in it. Idol was far from perfect jumping into the air and barking at
them every 100m or so. Toby was tugging hugely right along the paddock as the
cattle kept following us in their curious fashion. Further on in the day
Idol jumped up at a few sheep and landed into a ditch with a lot of water in it
from the rain. The main livestock issue of the day was from the huge flocks of
goats that wander around the area. They treat fences with total disdain and
just roam where they please. At one time when I was walking with just Toby 3
goats came out of the scrub. As we proceeded nearly 1km along the road more
joined them so there were about 10 by the time they ducked under a fence. Toby
was again tugging like mad on the lead. Idol flushed a couple later
in the day and gave chase very briefly before obeying my call to come to me.
I had
issues with Idol today getting behind me which I know is frequently a precursor
to sneaking across the road. This is much more successful when Pankaj is
walking with me as he can pretend he is just dropping back to walk with
Pankaj. On one occasion he actually managed to sneak across the road but
got a suitable telling off and didn’t try again.
There is a
climb of 55m shortly before reaching Wairoa with a steep descent. Having walked
nearly 24km my knees were very reluctant to switch to down hill mode.
Toby having
gone on strike and refusing to get out of the car at the 19km mark when I
wanted him to give Idol a rest agreed to walk from the railway crossing into
town and of course tried to claim a monopoly on all the pats that were being
distributed.
Arriving at
the branch it was very nice to have sit down and a cup of tea before
going across to the supermarket where Pankaj and I spent about haf an hour
collecting. We left when it started to rain. Mavis rang me later to
say that the Wairoa Star wanted a chat and a photograph in the morning and that
it was raining heavily so I was glad we had left as soon as it started to
rain. At Mahia it appears to have hardly rained all day.
Priscilla
took Pankaj and I for a trip to visit the hollow rock used as a baptism font by
William Williams in 1843.
Early morning post script. Toby is being paranoid. He won't let me touch his collar to turn his light on. Rabbits around this morning - and I suspect yesterday too. I lost Toby early on but continued on a 15 minute stroll with Idol. Toby was waiting on the porch on return. He is safe here as there are no roads nearby except those serving the batches which get about 3 cars a day.
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