Our Dream Adventure

OUR DREAM ADVENTURE...

In 2014/2015 we are taking some 'Time Out' and planning an adventure trip of a lifetime.

We will start with a six month thru hike of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail or 'AT' for short. A 2186 mile (3500km) trail running along the eastern United States of America.

Next we will be taking a break from daily hiking (there will be some hiking involved though!) and will be going on an amazing three month adventure holiday through South America.

Finally, back to thru hiking again. This time five to six months in New Zealand hiking the Te Araroa - New Zealand's Trail ('TA' for short). A 1865 mile (3000km) trail spanning the whole of New Zealand.

We have set up this Blog so that family, friends and anyone else who is interested, can follow our adventure which will include blogs about our planning and preparation stages as well as our whole amazing trip.

(So not to bore you with too much information, if you wish to read or learn more about what The Appalachian Trail and the Te Araroa Trail are all about see the 'Links' below the three maps in the left hand column.)

Christine & Nigel xxx



Tuesday, 8 July 2014

Day 138 Unnamed Gap Steath Camp to ME17, Oquossoc

Today's miles 8.8.  AT miles 1951.7

We were up fairly early again today, walking for 7:15.  The trail wasn't too bad today, no big ascents and descents like yesterday just gentle ups and downs on pretty good paths.  We walked over Bemis Mountain, bypassing its Lean-to, heading gradually downhill over rocky slabs to Bemis Mountain Second Peak.  Here we bumped into Jim Fetig, trail name Sisu.  Nigel had been in contact with him via Facebook since before we started hiking and we'd been following each others blogs. He'd always been slightly ahead of us, we only met him because he was slack packing a section of the trail the opposite way, north to south.  It was great to meet you at last Jim.

We continued slowly down to Bemis Stream which our guide book said we had to ford.  Luckily it wasn't too deep and we managed to rock hop across the shallow waters without getting water in our boots.  We will have to properly ford some streams/rivers soon, Maine is well known for the number of streams that require fording, some waist deep apparently.  It was half a mile uphill to ME17 road to Oquossoc from the stream.  We stopped hiking here for the day as I was still not feeling 100%, very fatigued.  It wasn't the busiest of roads but after about forty five minutes we managed to get a hitch to Oquossoc about 11 miles away from a very friendly dad and daughter duo.  There's not much in Oquossoc so we hitched again to Rangeley another 7 miles, we didn't have to wait long this time when another very friendly guy picked us up and dropped us at the Rangeley Inn in the centre of this lovely quaint small town on a lake. He said the locals are very happy to see visitors, they had a very bad winter the lake ice only melting at the end of May.
We checked in for two nights, I needed a rest day.  After a shower and afternoon nap we went to Sarges Pub opposite the hotel for food early evening followed by ice cream afterwards from Pine Tree Frosty ice cream bar next to the hotel, we didn't want to walk too far! 




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