Day 5

Start:  Yarragon

Finish:  Moe

Distance:  11

Total:  85

Today was a fairly easy 11 mile walk on flat terrain along a service road beside the freeway. Once again the train track ran along beside my road so every hour along came the trains, one going east, one going west. 

I took advantage of today’s shorter walking distance to get a little more sleep and also make a few calls for motels a couple of weeks down the road. One week from today I’ll make it to my first coastal town.  Because it’s summer vacation down here, I need to stay a little ahead on my reservation scheduling or else the motels may be booked, especially on weekends.  Checkout time this morning was 9:30 so I delayed breakfast until after checkout, then got on the road about 10:00. 

The weather was overcast and very muggy during my 3 1/2 hours of walking. As you recall from yesterday I mentioned the pesky fly problem I had. Last night I went into a little pharmacy and bought some Deet 40% spray. The lady at the pharmacy said the high humidity they’re having is very unusual but the humidity and rain is stirring up the flies. I can confirm that. So today I coated myself with Deet spray and humans could smell me coming from 10 feet away. Suffice to say the flies could smell me too and weren’t as bad today. However, when I got to my destination of Moe (pronounced Mow-ee) I went to the local outdoor rec store and purchased a mosquito net for my head and neck. Between the spray for the arms and legs and net for the head and neck, that should about fix the fly problem. 

Tomorrow it’s back to a more normal day; 19 miles further east as I go pass the century mark away from the starting line in Melbourne. JB