Ever since Ruth read the book "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson, walking the Appalachian (pronounced appa-larshan, not appa-layshan) Trail has been something she has wanted to do (I'm not writing 'bucket-list' here, as it's such a wanky phrase). Being 2190 miles long, we were always going to not quite have enough time to complete the whole thing, but we were determined to at least set our feet on the hallowed path. So.... on our way out of town we looked out for the signs for "Trail Head' and stopped for a brief 'walk in the woods'. Meeting a couple of elderly ladies who were planning to (and were well into) walk all parts of the trail in New Hampshire, they were able to snap this great shot and warn us that this part of the trail we were to embark on got pretty technical pretty fast. Little did they know we planned to walk about 10 metres only.
Equipped with none of the necessities of a good hiker, including a lack of a map, no water, few jumpers but including our best walking thongs, we set out on what turned out to be a stroll of about 1k. It would have been handy if we'd been told of the mosquito issue. Thousands of the little guys. But it was beautiful and we got to see a deer and a frog, some birds and a cute little stream. Awesome. |
Turning out to be one of the highlights of the trip for Charlie and Roma, we attended a Lumberjack Show just outside of Bar Harbor one cool night. The owner, Timber Tina, welcomed everyone as they came in, and the kids were delighted to find out that Tina had been a contestent on their new favourite show 'Survivor'. It was educational and amusing and the kids even got to give sawing a log a bit of a go.
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