Day 8 (Apr 29): Miles 98 - 106

We had another very short day today. Only about 8 miles. Went past Barrel Springs and San Ysidro creek. Had a long break to hide from the sun during the day and we are now at Eagle Rock where we will camp tonight. Eagle Rock is an impressive pile of rocks standing in the middle of a large cow pasture. There are loads of jersey cows around.

The short miles over last couple of days have really helped with the blisters and I feel ready to start putting in longer miles from tomorrow.

We will get to Warner Springs nice and early tomorrow morning so I can collect my supply boxes. Apparently the community centre serve up some food so I'm looking forward to that.

Saw quite a few thru hikers today and I think we'll be seeing even more from tomorrow onwards.

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Day 7 (Apr 28): Miles 87 - 98

The last week I've seen lots of military aircraft. At one point while I was walking to the Pioneer Mail camp 2 choppers came up out of the Anza-Borrego desert and right past me. At the Stagecoach Trails campsite we had a fighter jet scream by pretty low overhead. And this morning on the San Felipe hills we had two red and white jets blast past us and into the valley. They were slightly higher than us when they passed but were descending into the valley fast. I guess the lowest one couldn't have been higher than 150 or so meters from the ground at one point. They flew right across the valley and over the Rancherio trail head where we camped 3 nights ago. It took them a few seconds to get across the valley, and it took us 3 days! But hey, we had to circumnavigate it.

We waited out the sun for hours today after doing just 5 miles this morning.

Hiked up to a few miles before Barrel Springs and found a flat spot in a dry run off to cowboy camp. There was a cougar around - we kept hearing it growl during the night. Everything got wet from dew.

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Day 6: Miles 78 - 86

We caught the bus from Stagecoach Trails back to Scissors crossing at 8 am and started walking. We took a lot of breaks and only did about 8 miles. We are taking it slow so the blisters can heal. The sun was out in full force again so we were under our umbrellas most of the time. There was at least a slight cool wind blowing.

It's my first cowboy camp tonight. There is not a cloud in the sky and the forecast is for a dry few days.

Looking to take the next few days slow so we can heal up the blisters and also to time it right in order to find the Warner Springs post office open on Monday.

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Day 5: Miles 68 - 77

PWe had a very wet and windy night last night and most of us were kept up all night by the wind. Matt had a real rough night in his tarp and had to move it a few times. We packed up in the wind and rain quickly and headed out.

The hike down to Scissors Crossing was wet and windy but we gradually saw more sun as we got closer to the road.

We had to do about a 3 mile stretch along the road to Stagecoach Trails camp grounds where we are sharing a cabin. We took a wrong turn and had to do about an extra mile but eventually a friendly girl with two dogs in her truck picked us up and dropped us at th camp grounds. She actually turned around after she passed us to give us a lift. It was great. We only ended up doing about 2.5 extra miles along the road.

Camp ground has a pool but it was too windy to take a dip. I did have an awesome hot shower here though which was great. Pretty cool place here. Walked around with Matt and had a quick try at playing the "horse shoes" and "hillbilly golf" games that are on the camp grounds. Lots of horse pens here so seems like they have a lot of events here involving horses.

Looks like I'll only be able to post this tomorrow since there's not much signal here.

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Day 4

Yesterday and this morning we had some amazing views over the Anza-Borrego desert.

Camped at Pioneer Mail picnic area with Matt from Arkansaw and Joshua. There were some other hikers as well, including Heather and her 8 year old daughter Sierra who are both thru hiking.

Matt and I walked together most of the day. It was a hard day on a very rocky path down to the Rodriguez Spur Truck trail where we camped. There were loads of desert flowers along the way and amazing views. A good distraction from the blisters!

The views from our camp site are amazing!

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Day 3

Yesterday I met Joshua on the trail again and we hiked from outside Lake Morena to Long Canyon.

Tough day on the feet. I made the mistake of washing my shoes after a very dusty first day on the trail. So I hiked in my sandals and now have a few blisters.

Not planning on going far today, maybe just up to Laguna campround.

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First day

So the first day on the trail was very hot. I walked most of the way to Hauser Creek with a guy called Joseph Grubb. We made the mistake of not filling up our water at the first good creek we saw. We were seriously firsty by the time we hit the next creek. I'm camping just outside Lake Morena tonight.

Tomorrow I start

Relaxing at Seaport Village in SD. Tomorrow the real fun starts!

Some inspiration

This guy has been up on my bedroom wall for about 6 years. He's always been a great source of inspiration!

To blog or not to blog

With my PCT trip around the corner, I thought it wise to start a blog. I also have a blog on Postholer, which is a great site by the way. In all honesty I'm not too sure how dedicated I'll be with updating either blogs regularly while I'm out on the trail. Fact is I'm just plain lazy with stuff like this. I need something that's lazy-proof! Maybe it's time to get a Twitter account!

Initially I thought it would be cool to have a blog in my native language, Afrikaans, but my mom has already beaten me too it here! Dankie Ma!

Anyway, we shall see how the blogging goes over the next few months!