CDT18
12th May Friday
Long dusty road along Pie Town Road
27miles (43km)

The morning start was at 6:45 with only a distant cloud on the horizon and nothing but blue sky.  The bad weather the previous couple of days were two storm fronts that came through which we learnt  while we were in Pie Town.  The forecast for the next week is fine weather  but that didn’t stop me from getting cold in my sleeping bag  last night.

Sights along the road we walked

First break was our second breakfast after walking 2 hours and 45 minutes where we covered  about 8 miles, the walking is on gravel road and for the majority of the morning it was all up hill.  Not very exciting  this morning walk  among the dusty road passing a couple  of ranches.  But our next water supply is soon so I’d like to hydrate as much as possible and not carry excess water as my bag with 6 days worth  of food is heavy  enough.

Entrance to the Ranch

We got to our water point and as it turned out, it was a farm when an elderly  couple living there and they came out to greet us.  The old man was 85 years old and told us stories of his time in the Korean war back in the 1950’s.  Ken spoke to him for a while as they both had something in common  and used a lot of military  talk that went over my head.

John Thomson, a trail angel that helps out the hikers with water for many years

John Thomson, the old man’s name, gave us directions for our next water supply which was 8 miles further up the road.

Disused house, outside Thompson’s farm

We filled up everything and carrying 6 days worth of food and 5 litres  of water, it was really hard going and we had to stop more frequent to rest our sore feet.

Water source we share with the cows

According to the information we have, the water points that we were going to use on the trail for the next days have either dried up or no longer in service.  This wasn’t very good news so we decided to go for the direct path to the highway and tomorrow  make our way into Grants for a well reserved two days rest.