This is an attempt to describe the type of people we are meeting on the trail - apart from the boy scout groups which seem to have disappeared since the school holidays finished.
In the early days there were lots of jocks - the young college grads all trying to outboast each other about the highest mountains they had climbed etc. These have all rushed past us, and we think that the jock wave is about 200 hundred miles ahead of us, all vying to be the first thru-hiker to complete for 2010.
We have already heard along the trail grapevine about people who we met on day 1 and have already dropped out. One young man - Jeremy - from Louisiana, who stopped walking on the second day because it was the Sabbath and he wanted to respect the Sabbath while on the trail, did not make it to the next Sabbath. He was so overwhelmed by the number of people on the trail he decided to go home. We think that there were about 40 people a day coming through at that time.
Now it is about 15-20 people coming through. Everyone has trail names - ours are Wizard from Oz and Tripper. We met an old man who looked the spitting image of Father Christmas with out the red suit - about 75 we thought - he started hiking on March 15 - taking his time. His name is MAM - stands for Miles are Miracles. We have seen a few really oldies - long and wiry with varicose veins - walking at twice our speed.
We have not seen any married couples - sometimes pairs of friends or singles who team up on the trail. For a couple of days we hiked with Fast Food and Mr T - both young men who were unemployed and who thought that hiking the trail is a good way to wait for the job market to improve.
Diesel was in the military and now retired. He hiked the trail right through in 2004, and is now doing it again. He has Parkinson's Disease and watching him try and cook and pack up with the shakes is really hard. He says his trail name means that he is slow to get started, but once he is up and running there is no stopping him. An this is true. He left at 5.00am this morning to catch the 9.00 am suttle from the mountain.
Pocohontas Mode is a very fit young woman covered in serious tattoos on both her arms and legs. The back of one leg has a sentence tattooed into it but I dont know her well enough yet to ask her about it. Her trail name comes from getting into the zone when you are walking - imagining that you are back in the forest when the Indians roamed the land and the spirits were free.
Sugar Ray has a broken nose from throwing a rock over a branch to hang his bear bag of food for the night so the bear would not get it. The rock came back like a boomerang and banged him on the nose.
I could go on but this is enough to give you the idea - everyone on the trail has a story. You get to meet and then remeet people and make friends.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Our mobile phone saga
We decided to get a mobile phone with internet access for the trail, and took our super duper sony next G phone with us to the US. A visit to the mobile phone shops in Atlanta - and we learn that the best coverage on the trail is with Verizon - which has their OWN phone sevice with CDMA. Our phone is no good on their system. We can use AT&T service, and buy a sim card BUT you can't get reception on the trail with them most of the time. So we decide to go with Verizon. Then we have to have a plan. The easiest way to do it - is under the auspices of Mike and Theresa's account - otherwise we have to have a passport and a utility bill with an address in the US which we don't. M&T are happy to have us on their plan, so we go with it. We buy an extra super battery as well.
The next day we go to leave and have to go back to the verizon shop - the super spare battery doesn't actually fit into the phone - it needs a special cover - they dont have the cover. Verizon swap over the phone battery and give us a similar size one for free. We are on our way.
Three days later we have made 2 international calls and one tweet into facebook, and the phone dies on the screen - you can still make calls but no picture to see what you are doing.
We walk for three days and arrive at Neels Gap where we can mail the phone back to M&T so they can get us a replacement. We then walk another four days and arrive in Hiawassee. We walk into the motel, the guy looks at our name on the registration card and says, "there was a guy here yesterday looking for you to give you a mobile phone". Mike has driven a hundred miles to hand deliver a phone and he has missed us. We think where would he have left the phone - maybe the post office. We visit the post office - no they had nothing for us. The post master - called Brenda - lends us her mobile and we call Mike and Teresa and leave a message on their phone to say we are here.
Then we go off and have lunch in Daniel's Steakhouse. An hour later we emerge and find the postmaster Brenda has been driving up and down the road looking for us - she had rung the other motel, Mull's motel, and they had the phone, so once she knew where our phone was all she had to do was find us - which she finally did! We wander over to Mull's Motel to be greeted by a very old lady, wearing handmade knitted stockings to her knees, who says yes she has our phone for us!!! We tip her $2 and take the phone. Let's hope the phone saga is now finished.
We are overwhelmed with how the locals have put themselves out for us - and very appreciative.
PS We check the messages - there is one from a debt collection agency chasing a debt - whose number have we inherited??
The next day we go to leave and have to go back to the verizon shop - the super spare battery doesn't actually fit into the phone - it needs a special cover - they dont have the cover. Verizon swap over the phone battery and give us a similar size one for free. We are on our way.
Three days later we have made 2 international calls and one tweet into facebook, and the phone dies on the screen - you can still make calls but no picture to see what you are doing.
We walk for three days and arrive at Neels Gap where we can mail the phone back to M&T so they can get us a replacement. We then walk another four days and arrive in Hiawassee. We walk into the motel, the guy looks at our name on the registration card and says, "there was a guy here yesterday looking for you to give you a mobile phone". Mike has driven a hundred miles to hand deliver a phone and he has missed us. We think where would he have left the phone - maybe the post office. We visit the post office - no they had nothing for us. The post master - called Brenda - lends us her mobile and we call Mike and Teresa and leave a message on their phone to say we are here.
Then we go off and have lunch in Daniel's Steakhouse. An hour later we emerge and find the postmaster Brenda has been driving up and down the road looking for us - she had rung the other motel, Mull's motel, and they had the phone, so once she knew where our phone was all she had to do was find us - which she finally did! We wander over to Mull's Motel to be greeted by a very old lady, wearing handmade knitted stockings to her knees, who says yes she has our phone for us!!! We tip her $2 and take the phone. Let's hope the phone saga is now finished.
We are overwhelmed with how the locals have put themselves out for us - and very appreciative.
PS We check the messages - there is one from a debt collection agency chasing a debt - whose number have we inherited??
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The moment has arrived
I knew the holiday had started when our taxi driver sang along with an Elvis CD all the way to the airport. It was the perfect ballad and the taxi driver had a great voice!
The 24 hours travelling time worked - no delays, no lost luggage. I had been nervous about our visas - but as it turned out the Homeland Security Officer was very friendly and gave us the 6 months we needed rather than the 180 days (which would have meant we were 3 days short). So we are legally in the country until the 29th September, which is the date of our Qantas flight back to Melbourne.
We staggered out of the Atlanta Terminal and stood like lost souls on the footpath waiting for Mike and Theresa to find us - they had been circling for sometime doing the loop along with another 100 cars - in minutes they found us, loaded us and we were on our way.
Our first US experience - dinner at a BarBQue - a restaurant where the meat is cooked on spits and served -we met Mike and Theresa's son Mike, his wife Emily, and son Mike. So we had Michael I, Michael II, and Michael III at the dinner table. The main impressions - the fantastic service from the waitress, and the cheap price of the food - $10 for a main course.
Mike and Theresa live about 1 hr from Atlanta in a western red cedar ranchstyle house with a lakeside frontage to Lake Lanier - a man-made lake dammed in the 1950s with many steep flooded valleys and houses built with lakeside views along all the ridges. It is a large block covered in trees which currently have no leaves. So in the morning we sat on the verandah and watched an amazing wildlife display - the squirrels run up and down 30 metre trunks, saw the hawk catch his morning meal, and loads of yellow finches, woodpeckers, bluejays and a cardinal bird which is bright red, right up next to the house feeding from the bird feeders. Once the trees get their leaves, the lake will be hidden and the birds will be harder to see.
The morning was spent in a phone shop. We have had to buy a new phone. So many phones, so many plans, so many choices. It is red, with a real keyboard, and we got an extra battery. I am hoping to Twitter remotely. Our network is Verizon, which has the best coverage in the remote areas, and the appalachian trail forums recommend this company over all the others.
A vist to the Texan Steakhouse for lunch, followed by a trip to Walmart to buy our food for the next seven days. Now we are all set.
If anyone wants to email me directly, I will be using alison.gotts@gmail.com and will check it when I get into towns. Our phone is 770 4905072 if anyone wants to send us a text.
We have packed all our food and tomorrow we start - Mike and Theresa are dropping us off at Amicalolo Falls to begin our journey. They have been real trail angels for us - it has made everything so easy - we are very appreciative and wondering how we can ever repay their generous hospitality. Let's hope they revisit the Daintree.
The 24 hours travelling time worked - no delays, no lost luggage. I had been nervous about our visas - but as it turned out the Homeland Security Officer was very friendly and gave us the 6 months we needed rather than the 180 days (which would have meant we were 3 days short). So we are legally in the country until the 29th September, which is the date of our Qantas flight back to Melbourne.
We staggered out of the Atlanta Terminal and stood like lost souls on the footpath waiting for Mike and Theresa to find us - they had been circling for sometime doing the loop along with another 100 cars - in minutes they found us, loaded us and we were on our way.
Our first US experience - dinner at a BarBQue - a restaurant where the meat is cooked on spits and served -we met Mike and Theresa's son Mike, his wife Emily, and son Mike. So we had Michael I, Michael II, and Michael III at the dinner table. The main impressions - the fantastic service from the waitress, and the cheap price of the food - $10 for a main course.
Mike and Theresa live about 1 hr from Atlanta in a western red cedar ranchstyle house with a lakeside frontage to Lake Lanier - a man-made lake dammed in the 1950s with many steep flooded valleys and houses built with lakeside views along all the ridges. It is a large block covered in trees which currently have no leaves. So in the morning we sat on the verandah and watched an amazing wildlife display - the squirrels run up and down 30 metre trunks, saw the hawk catch his morning meal, and loads of yellow finches, woodpeckers, bluejays and a cardinal bird which is bright red, right up next to the house feeding from the bird feeders. Once the trees get their leaves, the lake will be hidden and the birds will be harder to see.
The morning was spent in a phone shop. We have had to buy a new phone. So many phones, so many plans, so many choices. It is red, with a real keyboard, and we got an extra battery. I am hoping to Twitter remotely. Our network is Verizon, which has the best coverage in the remote areas, and the appalachian trail forums recommend this company over all the others.
A vist to the Texan Steakhouse for lunch, followed by a trip to Walmart to buy our food for the next seven days. Now we are all set.
If anyone wants to email me directly, I will be using alison.gotts@gmail.com and will check it when I get into towns. Our phone is 770 4905072 if anyone wants to send us a text.
We have packed all our food and tomorrow we start - Mike and Theresa are dropping us off at Amicalolo Falls to begin our journey. They have been real trail angels for us - it has made everything so easy - we are very appreciative and wondering how we can ever repay their generous hospitality. Let's hope they revisit the Daintree.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What am I going to read?
This question has been troubling me - books are heavy. I can read a novel in a day. I can't carry a load of books with me in my pack. So I have decided to venture down a new path - I am going into poetry. i figure that one poetry book should last me for 6 months, especially if I take on the challenge of learning all the poems.
My poetic memories are very sparse. I can remember in 1965 learning 'Ode to Autumn' (by Keats I think) which started 'Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness....' the rest is lost to the mists of time, but I do remember enjoying the experience of chanting the whole poem with 39 other 14 year olds in our English class with Mrs Hogan - it was quite a group bonding session. We learnt quite a bit of poetry that year, but Ode to Autumn is the only one that is still with me. I went to speech lessons for 12 months to try and make me talk with less strine, and I can remember 'you are old father william, the young man said, and your hair has become very white'....and then 'the highwayman came riding, riding, the highway man came riding'.....just a few snatches lodged into my subconscious.
In year 12 I quite enjoyed TS Eliot and we studied a bit of Chaucer as well. At university it was John Donne and Gerald Hopkins. Nothing much remembered there but for a phrase 'hairy diadem of gold' .... John Donne describing the pubic hair of his mistress. She must have been a blonde. Then a big effort when I was teaching English myself, to make sure that my own students enjoyed poetry - I didn't want to turn them off it, but I probably did as I had little idea how to 'teach poetry'.
My most vibrant poetic memories are with the Aboriginal kids at Epenarra, where I taught the junior class how to read using 'big books' - huge books with great pictures that we could all read at the same time together. The rhythms of the text were wonderful - 'in went the duck, wishy washy wishy washy, in went the pig, wishy washy, wishy washy. Loud, vibrant, confident we yelled our way through a whole series of texts - and took them with us when we went outside. So a visit to the river, and next minute we are enacting Mrs Wishy Washy and the words are pounded out.
By the time the children turned 8, they realised it wasn't cool to recite stuff any more, and they lost their voice. This usually happened when they moved into the big class.
So I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn some poems and be able to chant them while I am walking, to keep the mind active, and share them with whoever is on the trail as a bit of entertainment. I did a search on google for 'book of australian poetry', and up came a list with this title appealing to me - 60 Classic Australian Poems. so I have ordered it - 60 different poets - and each poem has a page of notes the author describes why he thinks the poem is a classic and unpacks the poem as well. All that symbolism stuff goes straight over my head if nobody points it out. It includes poets from present day and goes right back - I did notice that Lawson and banjo patterson each have one listed on the table of contents. All the others I had never heard of. So that is my intellectual challenge for the walk.
I just hope this is not a heavy book - they don't have the weight of the book when you are shopping!
My poetic memories are very sparse. I can remember in 1965 learning 'Ode to Autumn' (by Keats I think) which started 'Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness....' the rest is lost to the mists of time, but I do remember enjoying the experience of chanting the whole poem with 39 other 14 year olds in our English class with Mrs Hogan - it was quite a group bonding session. We learnt quite a bit of poetry that year, but Ode to Autumn is the only one that is still with me. I went to speech lessons for 12 months to try and make me talk with less strine, and I can remember 'you are old father william, the young man said, and your hair has become very white'....and then 'the highwayman came riding, riding, the highway man came riding'.....just a few snatches lodged into my subconscious.
In year 12 I quite enjoyed TS Eliot and we studied a bit of Chaucer as well. At university it was John Donne and Gerald Hopkins. Nothing much remembered there but for a phrase 'hairy diadem of gold' .... John Donne describing the pubic hair of his mistress. She must have been a blonde. Then a big effort when I was teaching English myself, to make sure that my own students enjoyed poetry - I didn't want to turn them off it, but I probably did as I had little idea how to 'teach poetry'.
My most vibrant poetic memories are with the Aboriginal kids at Epenarra, where I taught the junior class how to read using 'big books' - huge books with great pictures that we could all read at the same time together. The rhythms of the text were wonderful - 'in went the duck, wishy washy wishy washy, in went the pig, wishy washy, wishy washy. Loud, vibrant, confident we yelled our way through a whole series of texts - and took them with us when we went outside. So a visit to the river, and next minute we are enacting Mrs Wishy Washy and the words are pounded out.
So I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn some poems and be able to chant them while I am walking, to keep the mind active, and share them with whoever is on the trail as a bit of entertainment. I did a search on google for 'book of australian poetry', and up came a list with this title appealing to me - 60 Classic Australian Poems. so I have ordered it - 60 different poets - and each poem has a page of notes the author describes why he thinks the poem is a classic and unpacks the poem as well. All that symbolism stuff goes straight over my head if nobody points it out. It includes poets from present day and goes right back - I did notice that Lawson and banjo patterson each have one listed on the table of contents. All the others I had never heard of. So that is my intellectual challenge for the walk.
I just hope this is not a heavy book - they don't have the weight of the book when you are shopping!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
An update on weather conditions
Appalachian Trail Conservancy Advice to spring break hikers: Winter conditions currently prevail everywhere on the AT from GA to ME. Wear gaiters, footwear for snow & ice, avoid cotton,and have plenty of lightweight, warm layers of clothing. Snow-&-ice traction devices may come in handy (crampons are usu. overkill in the South). Snow is inches high in GA but feet high in tallest mtns of NC, TN, and VA. Plan on lower mileage & carry more food.Just our luck. This means that lots of walkers will put off the start of the walk until the end of March and start with us - it will be really crowded - a bit like the start of the sydney to surf run. Oh well - we are pretty slow so I guess we will get left behind soon enough.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
It's snowing in them thar hills
It's 4 weeks until Digby and I start walking.
I am reading through the internet trail journals of those who have just started on the trail battling the snow and the rain in Georgia. The heaviest snowfalls in Georgia ever. Hikers are freezing in the sub zero sleeping bags, bailing out to stay in towns and wait for the snowstorms to pass. Down jackets are sold out in the towns near the trail. One group orders snow shoes with cleats to be shipped to Franklin, the town they are holed up in, waiting for the weather to improve. They can't hitch a ride back to the trail because the highway crossing the trail is closed. They plan to get a ride as far as they can, then clip on the snowshoes and start walking.
Meanwhile, we sit in tropical Queensland, sweating in high temperatures and high humidity and read about the hiker who has worn all the clothes he has to sleep in, and is still cold. Counting down the days, wondering what extra gear we should be taking - down jackets had not been on the agenda.
How much can the weather improve in 4 weeks? I am glued to the journals and read the latest updates each night. Getting mentally prepared to freeze my bum off.
I am reading through the internet trail journals of those who have just started on the trail battling the snow and the rain in Georgia. The heaviest snowfalls in Georgia ever. Hikers are freezing in the sub zero sleeping bags, bailing out to stay in towns and wait for the snowstorms to pass. Down jackets are sold out in the towns near the trail. One group orders snow shoes with cleats to be shipped to Franklin, the town they are holed up in, waiting for the weather to improve. They can't hitch a ride back to the trail because the highway crossing the trail is closed. They plan to get a ride as far as they can, then clip on the snowshoes and start walking.
Meanwhile, we sit in tropical Queensland, sweating in high temperatures and high humidity and read about the hiker who has worn all the clothes he has to sleep in, and is still cold. Counting down the days, wondering what extra gear we should be taking - down jackets had not been on the agenda.
How much can the weather improve in 4 weeks? I am glued to the journals and read the latest updates each night. Getting mentally prepared to freeze my bum off.
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