Dutch man walking: Counting down

It's been a while since the last post, 400 miles to be exact. I am now in Pawling, New York and have only 700 miles to go to complete my journey and from now on I am counting down the miles!

I went through just a small number of towns in the last 250 miles, mainly because we have stopped fooling around and actually started doing a lot of miles, including a few 30 mile days. I've also been seeing less people then I did the first half of the trail. They say by this stage more then 70 % of the people that started the A.T. have dropped out for one reason or another.

So since the last time I blogged I have gone past the half way point off the A.T. Interestingly there are 3 halfway points on the actual trail. This is because the length of the total trail changes slightly every year and over the years it has changed a lot so there have been a couple of official halfway points in the form of signs on the trail. At one of the points there is a little museum and deli. At the deli there is a thing called the half gallon challenge, the idea being you hiked half the trail now eat half a gallon of ice cream (1.8 liters). I finished my ice cream in 9 minutes, which was a really good time apparently.

Me at the halfway point sign

The wooden spoon you got after finishing the half gallon challenge

After the half gallon challenge it was time to move on to the next state on the trail, it was Pennsylvania. It was a very different state because it was very flat and very rocky (it's nicknamed rocksylvania). We also crossed some cornfields, on one of which I got lost and found myself on a train track, where I flipped a coin to decide which way I should follow the tracks. I got lucky and after half a mile on the tracks I was in a little town that was right on the trail. It was in this town where I stayed in a place called Allenberry Resort. It was amazing. They let us stay there for $40 (King of the Hill and me) and the place had everything; good food, a pool, a game room, wifi and it really was like a resort. Apparently we got a very big hiker discount.

Another place where I stayed was Port Clinton, also in Pennsylvania. I stayed in the park where there was a big pavilion. There was a guy there by the name off "can-do will-do" driving people back and forth to Walmart and all the places to eat because otherwise you would have to walk on a highway for half a mile (not very safe obviously!). This was all very fine until we got pulled over by the police who told us we couldn't sit in the back of can-do will-do's pickup truck. He wasn't sure what law it was though so he let us off with a warning. After this the police started looking out for can-do will-do's truck so every time we would need a ride we would have to lie down in the back off his pick-up like a bunch of illegal immigrants being smuggled over the border, we laughed about it afterwards.

After Pennsylvania came New Jersey and New York. The trail here has a lot of lakes, beaches and deli's close by, which is very nice for us. The only downside to this is that everything is more expensive up north compared to the south of the U.S. so my wallet is not happy.

I've also seen a lot of snakes on the trail. The rattlesnakes are a bit scary because they are poisonous and can get pretty aggressive other then that it's not that big of a deal.

I'm looking forward to the last part of the trail. There should be some more serious climbs coming up along with some amazing terrain and surroundings. Some more pictures bellow!