Day 9 | Old Coach Road to Princetown: is this really a road?
32 km | Heading west total: 388 km
I’ve been around these parts in a fast moving car a number of times but somehow never felt I came to grips with the area: the features just zoom by, and in a car you just can’t be bothered to stop and take the time to explore each one.
This time around the pact I’ve made with myself is this: if there’s something to see, I have to make a ‘Moderate Effort’ to see it.
There’s no coming back over this road in any great detail again.
Today’s challenge was there. A dotted track on the map. A more direct route that avoids having to treadle right up Lavers Hill. Surely it couldn’t be that bad.
A grassy track through a few gates over some paddocks to start. Then a rising farm track with bone jarring pockmarks from cattle hooves. Eventually there were some outstanding views back the way I had come, high over the Southern Ocean, the path kept climbing. Some real steep pushing on a gravel road, sandal’s traction found wanting. At the top a feast of blackberries in perfect condition. My teeth are black and I feel a bit ill.
See, it’s not a bad move to take the road less travelled.