Day 58

Start: Eungai

Finish:  Macksville 

Distance:  12

Total:  918

After a good night’s rest in the Mandarin Motel in Macksville last night I had an easy day of walking today, though it was mostly back on the freeway.  

My day got started with a 5:45 alarm. I bought my breakfast goodies last night at the local grocery store and ate in my room so I wouldn’t have to get up even earlier. I was packed and out the door at 6:30 for my one mile walk to the train station to catch the 7:15 train back to Eungai where I stopped walking yesterday. The train was right on time and it took 15 minutes to get to Eungai, which you’ll recall is out in the bush off the main road. 

Immediately after stepping off the train the flies attacked. When those suckers are around, they’re persistent. I put my net over my face and that solved the immediate problem, even though there are hundreds hitching a ride on the backside of my backpack that I can’t do anything about. 

After about a two mile hike to get back out of bush country, I was on the freeway. It was quite cool this morning (68 degrees) and I had the shade on my side of the road so other than the humidity, it wasn’t too bad. I walked about eight miles on the freeway until I came to the Macksville exit, then another two miles into town to my hotel. 

Here’s a quick human interest story. Every day I do laundry. That’s because I only carry two sets of walking clothes and I don’t want to run out by not washing every day. In these small town motels, they usually have a guest laundry. Sometimes it’s free. Other times it’s coin operated and costs maybe $2-3/load to wash and $1/load to dry. Sometimes the owner/manager even volunteers to do my laundry for me for free. So yesterday I checked in to this motel I’m staying in now in Macksville. As I always do, I asked if they had a laundry. The lady said yes, that it was $10/load to wash and $10/load to dry. Now I’ve been known to overreact, but I don’t usually just blurt it out right then and there. But I did this time because this was quite a deviation from what I was accustomed to and it caught me off guard.  I said “$10?  Are you kidding me?  That’s $20 to wash and dry one load of laundry.”   She said that’s right, but I could take my laundry into town to the laundromat if I wanted. So yesterday I didn’t do my laundry. I waited until after I walked today with my second and last set of clean walking clothes on, and went five blocks into town to the laundromat and spent $9 total to do two days worth of laundry. And I feel really good about that. 

Tomorrow I pack up everything and walk 19 miles to another train station where I’ll hop the train and ride into the next big town, Coffs Harbour. That will put me back on the coast again and I’ll be in a motel there for three nights, including a day off on Thursday. 

That’s all for my Monday. I hope your weekend was a good one. JB.