Saturday 14 November 2015

Day 14 - Ngunguru to Tidesong B&B (TA 369) - 26km plus 10km by car

Mila gave us a lift for the first 10km of road and waved us goodbye. A few more kms of road before the start of Mackerel Forest. The track notes warned of two river crossings, the first meant to be knee to thigh deep, but thankfully both only ankle deep. Mackerel track only went for 4km then it was back on the road for 13 very long km - my body rebelled at all the bitumen pounding and my right inner thigh just went. One minute OK, one minute stuffed! Pain was excruciating - knife in the thigh type stuff. I hoped I could walk it out but no such luck. Took a magic pill and kept shuffling, finally reaching Padua and catching up with Alex and Harriet.  All of us had this perception that once we reached Padua we were nearly there, but there was some more road (oh bliss)  and a walk around the estuary before we got to Tidesong B&B. The tide was still going out when we hit the estuary and it became a muddy battle with us trying to find a bit of firmer ground amongst the mangroves. We got to a point where we couldn't see a way forward so we backtracked to where we had seen some stairs head up from the estuary. We climbed the stairs and then followed the track up into someone's backyard and headed out their driveway. The plan was to take the long way round by road. Luckily we came across Suzie, who was moving her float, and she gave us a lift to the top of Beasley Rd. Knowing that we definately didn't have far to go now, we all had a spring (admittedly a slightly sprung spring) in our step as we headed down to Tidesong.

Hugh (our host) had just got back from mowing the airstrip, but in quick time had us out on the deck and sorted with a cuppa and a piece of cake.

Tidesong is set on the banks of the estuary in amongst the trees and I could feel my body relaxing bit by bit  with every moment.  Rest day tomorrow - hopefully enough time to sort this leg out.  Resupply time too - am NOT looking forward to filling up my pack!

Pigeon xx













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