Well, we did it and before winter really hit! Yesterday was the last leg of our effort to walk the entire Batona trail. It took two days to finish the final leg because of multiple commitments amongst the group. Rich had a 5k to organize and I had to work on Saturday evening, allowing only enough time on Saturday for a 4.8 mile stretch.
Sunday morning broke colder but brighter than Saturday, and we hit the trail by 9:15. The final leg had surprising bits of "uplands" and lots of tall oaks. There were also a few lovely stands of holly trees, beautifully decked with red berries.
Our finale was lunch/brunch at a local log cabin restaurant directly across the street from the trail head. Apanay's has been a fixture out in them thar parts for a long time. I've only been there twice and have to report the food is very good and amazingly cheap. We also discovered what the name means! Apparently it means star in Turkish! They got a gold star from us for excellent service and good food for a group of seven tired, chilled hikers. They even gave us the loft dining area to ourselves, so it really was like a private party to mark our completion of the trail.
Now that we've got that out of our systems....what next???
I am finding that my new job in retail, which can mean four plus hours on my feet on a hard floor, has an interesting fringe benefit. My legs and feet are much more used to the pounding they take when hiking for miles. On our Saturday excursion we were on the trail for about 2 hours or so, and then I stood at work for another four hours, and felt fine afterwards. I think this is going to be a help when it comes time to do the Camino and walk on the hard tarmac. Although whenever there is an option to avoid those hard surfaces, I will! On our Portuguese Camino, Joe and I would often walk in/on the leaf litter at the side of the road as we found that too helped to cushion the footsteps.
Ahh well enough now...time to call the Doctors office...I've got a raging earache at the moment and need to do something about it.
Sorry to hear about the earache - just read yesterday about someone who tried 'candling' and ended up in hospital - so good that your going straight to the doctor!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried walking with those funny 'five fingers' trail shoes? I found a blog written by a young man who walked his camino wearing those. Got me thinking... I've seen people run with them on our trail runs over here but don't really know too much about them.
Good luck with getting those ears sorted!