Today's miles 11.5. AT miles 1607.1
A shorter day today, we were heading for Bennington town for a rest. We started walking at eight straight into a steady uphill climb, the first of three today. The trail was pretty good, just odd patches of soggy Vermont mud to get by. We passed a few pine swamps/ponds. One the boardwalk past it was actually lower than the water level which was a bit worrying but there seemed to be a good dam system holding all the water back. We passed the 1600 mile mark today too!
After Harmon Hill we started descending for the last mile and a half down to the road VT9 to Bennington. A steady descent at first but the last half mile was very steep with rocks and huge rocky steps. We passed a young family having a rest who were on the way up, almost at the top of the rocky section who had two toddlers with them, I guess heading for Harman Hill. What were they thinking? That steep rocky path was hard enough for us AT thru hikers, no place to bring toddlers.
Once at the road we got out our 'hiker to town' sign and tried getting a hitch into Bennington. We waited just ten minutes and were picked up by Roland, a lovely retired guy who also likes hiking. He dropped us at our hotel just before 2pm and also kindly offered to give us a lift back to the trail again on Tuesday. We're staying at the Kirkside Motor Lodge in the centre of town, very nice accommodation with the softest nicest smelling bath towels we've had so far. The owner, Billy, was very friendly and showed us the best places to go to eat, together with the owners names, on the local map. He said to show his business card and to mention his name for VIP treatment, we didn't, we're not into name dropping. We ended up at the recommended Madison Brewery Restaurant and had a really lovely meal. Nigel tried their home brew, something similar to Yorkshire ale, he had a second pint so must have been good.
Late afternoon we wandered back to the hotel, it was very hot, another 30°C/86°F sunny day, we're glad we'd got off the hill early. We're staying two nights in Bennington, we're having a zero/rest day tomorrow. Our last rest day was in Port Clinton on day 86, 24 days ago, so we're ready for one.
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