Day 4 Neels Gap to Low Gap Shelter

Miles today 11.5.   AT total 43.2

We left Neels Gap at 8.45am, taking a photo of the white blazed trail going through the building archway and signing their trail register.  It was another gorgeous warm and sunny day.  The trail today mainly followed the ridge line along Blue Ridge through the woods.  We passed a few other friendly hikers, a couple of guys weekend camping and hiking with their dog, a group of scouts and another lovely couple with their collie dog who recognised us from Mountain Crossings Facebook photo they posted of us last night - fame at last! Lol.
We climbed and descended a couple of mountains, Levelland Mountain and Cowrock Mountain which had great views from a rocky slab on the summit before reaching Tesnatee Gap. 

Here we bumped into a lady thru hiking with her 6 year old son.  The little boy was quite a character, a big chat a box, he seemed to be enjoying his hike experience.  Nigel offered him some of his trail mix, his response 'you make awwwesome trail mix'!
From this Gap it was up and over Wildcat Mountain down to Hogpen Gap.  Then a couple more ups and downs to Low Gap Shelter where we are camping for the night.  A really pretty spot with a stream running in front of the shelter, bear cables and a privy, we arrived at 2.15pm so we had a nice relaxing afternoon in the sun.
We're here again tonight with Matt and Karl, (no trail names yet - we'll work on that!) they camped behind the hostel last night which is where they disappeared to. Also here are the 2 German guys Milk Monster and Amazing Ant and girl, Wall E. A lovely little hiker bubble we're in.  Poor Wall E was 10 minutes or so behind the guys getting to camp, accidentally missed the turning to the shelter and ended up walking another mile before she realised and the guys managed to catch up with her. We were getting quite concerned for a while when she took ages to appear.  Nigel and I agreed before we left that we would always stick together for safety and not walk separately unless with others. Wall E's experience just reconfirmed our decision was a good one.

We saw a couple of birds today, a small Dark-eyed Junco and a bunch of Turkey Vultures riding the thermals.  We've also seen American Robins, much bigger than our robins, more Thrush sized and Eastern Grey Squirrels.  We've heard woodpeckers but not been able to catch sight of them. Not a lot of wildlife around at the moment as its still winter.  The forests we've been walking through though are predominantly White Oak we think from the leaf litter on the ground.  Not a lot of plant life to see yet either until spring but the evergreens we've seen so far are  American Holly, Shortleaf Pine, Sheep Laurel and Catawba Rhododendron as far as we can tell from our guides.
We were in bed early, about 7.30pm arriving at camp early it seemed later than it was and going to bed to early made it a long drawn out night. We were up at 6.30am, temperature 2°C when we woke.  We made a hot drink in the tent then packed away before having our porridge/oatmeal.