DAY 6
After a night constantly sliding down (we pitched the tent on a little slope), we started our 6th day walking. So far, we have been fortunate, gorgeous sunny days with summery temperatures, and all our need for electricity has been satisfied by the solar panel we carry on top of the trolley.
We decided to abandon the paths for a normal road instead, which allowed us to crunch more kilometres in a shorter time. Obviously, we sacrificed views of the beautiful landscape, but beauty is always lurking around the corner. We spent few minutes checking out some cows responding to the owner’s call.
We spotted houses with a strange roof. David told us that those roofs are used for kilning the hops and are called oast-houses. Those remind me of the Italian Trulli, which similarly were storehouses.
After several hours of walking, we stopped in a nice cafe for a lovely coffee and a cold drink, and we ended up having a great chat with the owner Leandra, Mischa and Carry.
At this point, we were in the well nicely kept town of Five Oaks Green. The town gave out a nice feeling, and when we approach a bench to eat our lunch, Jim’s note strengthened our feelings.
We rejoined our route; we passed through a tree tunnel, and all of a sudden, we were walking on the embankment of a river.
Because of the weekend, many people were camping in the area. We were looking for something, and we decided to walk further. The embankment stretched for many kilometres, but we didn’t realise the amount of stingy nettle and mosquitos. Soon our march became faster; faster, we were going more stingy nettle we were hitting, but as soon as we stopped, the mosquitos were feeding on us. We took the time to stop taking a photo of this person canoeing in the river, which was using his t-shirt as an umbrella holder. By then, our legs and arms were completely bitten.
At the end of the embankment, we reached our destination, where the owner’s sister was having a wedding party. They were very nice to us, and they offered us some of their food.
DAY 7
Day 7 was mostly uneventful. We walked for 22 kilometres on small country roads. The roads were small, but we car speeding up more than we liked. Whenever we were walking, we did it as fast as possible. Finally, we entered into a flow state (we were in the zone); pain and aches were there, but we kept going, reaching picks of sustained 6-7 kilometres per hour.
At around 5 pm, we reached our destination. The camping was fantastic; the friendly owner, Laura, offered us a nice fresh drink. Thank you, Laura.
