Legs and Borders

"Those damn gypsies selling drugs on the side of the road, but at least we know where they are" Mike (or Tim) "The ones that don't do what they are told, that's the good guys" Dave Long, productive day on the road, Kerouac would be proud. I started walking from Paihaia just after sunrise, got 6$ latte at mobile "Coffee 2 Go" parked on the side of the road, it was delicious. Then I've walked all the way up to Opua which took me about an hour and caught 2$ ferry to Okiato. The driver was quite talkative and explained to me few queries I had about the trail ahead. After ferry crossing which took 15 minutes, I kept on walking until I reached the intersection. Here I decided to hitch quite dangerous, windy section of it, managed to get a quick hitchhike with Mike and his dog Tim (or Tim and his dog Mike, I got it completely mixed up). He was a local farmer who apparently picked up hundreds of TA hikers...

Me: Is that a bullet shell? Cucumber: Yes it is. Welcome to America. I woke up and carefully opened the tent to check if my rattlesnake neighbour from last night was still here and indeed it was still chilling in the previous spot, did not move a millimeter. I reckon it was sent by the snake federation as a reward for snake overload the previous day, to protect me from bears and bobcats. The day, especially compared to the previous one was fairly uneventful. Three fairly big ascents (Pinyon Mountain, Wyleys Knob and Skinner's Peak) throughout the day, followed by few miles of easy and shaded walk in the forrest, followed by last few miles of boring dirt road walking. The wind blew all day long, especially up high it was very strong and nearly knocked me down few times. Highlight of the day was crossing through the mile 630, as that was so far length of the longest continuous walk I did - South West Coast Path in England, followed by 500 mile long Camino de Santiago in Spain. Now th...