Day 18 Mohadari to Nashik

Distance walked 354.7km by Pankaj 289.2km by Mike
Not sure of the exact totals but it is greater than NZD5000 or INR250000
Hopefully tomorrow I will get a total of what has been banked in India.

The start of the day was at 8.30am in a valley at the foot of a large hill. While it had been 17 degrees a few kilometres closer to Nashik here it was 11 degrees and a cool wind blowing. Once walking it was good but definitely colder than in the air-conditioned car which is a change as usually outside is much hotter.   There was a quarry near to where we started and as we passed by there was a huge blast of black smoke from around the sheds.  I presume it was a large diesel engine starting up as it was a long way from the quarry face so it wouldn't be blasting.

By 9.15 the temperature had climbed to 17 degrees.  Coming through Shinde Toll Booth I found this highly confused vehicle.  It has a diesel engine and it certainly doesn't seem to carry petrol and it does ave police logos on the side.

This canal which went under the road near the toll booth is over 200km long and provides irrigation water for a large part of the Nashik district.

  By 10.15 we had covered 7km and reached Palase where we found a cane juice seller when we needed a rest. Very refreshing.

Our crossing of the Darna River was made easier by the bridge towards Nashik being closed and traffic diverted over the old bridge, There was no work taking place on the bridge and I can only assume that theremust be a structural problem - perhaps some of the piles washed out during the flooding in the last monsoon.

 From here our walk ws through the city towards Dwarka Chowk (circle) near the centre of the city where we change direction to head southwest towards Mumbai.  After16km we were rather tired and found a rather swank restaurant for lunch.  I thought we were getting toasted sandwiches as in NZ but what we got was a sandwich made using toast  I had cheese, Pankaj had vege wich turned out to be tomato and cucumber.

Early in the day Pankaj had expressed doubt we would reach Dwarka Chowk today which I couldn't understand as it was only 22km to wherever Google thinks the centre of Nashik is from our start and I didn't think Dwarka Chowk could be far from there.  As it turned out it was 2km closer and we finished walking about 2pm.

Paraj arrived about 15 minutes after us and it was off to the old part of Nashik for shopping.  I found silk for Fiona in a shop which had the whole rainbow so I now where to go if there is another trip. Next was a search for trucks for my grandsons.  Failing to find anything that looked properly like the India trucks with their beautiful hand painted decoration I settled for auto-rickshaws.  It was then on to a clothing store where I bought a very nice green shirt and red trousers to wear for Diwali etc back in Wellington.  The trousers will need Fiona's loving touch as to get something that wasn't too tight on the calves it is ginormous around the waste.

The nice part of the day came when we went out in the evening to be welcomed officially to Ozar.  One of the shop owners took a bucket and walked around the other shops asking very directly for donations.  The bucket finished up containing over 5600 rupees.         

Donations can be made at https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/school-of-walk in New Zealand or direct to 06-0574-0833554-00 or  https://milaap.org/fundraisers/givealittle-schoolofwalk in India