Hello Mr Policeman...

Well after saying farewell to the boys from Imperial I set off rather late around lunch time. With pretty good weather ahead of me but only 5 hours of daylight I was in for a quick, short day of walking. I pulled up only after about 4 hours and 20kms as I came across a church I was hoping I could camp at. Upon arriving it seemed nobody was there so I turned around after knocking to continue on down the road. just then a beam of flashlights came out of the carpark. I waved the car down and was met by an older lady who asked how she could help me. Again, I explained what I was doing but was to be informed that they did not have any grass on the property to get a stake in for my tent. But this lady (sorry I forget her name) was keen on lending a hand. She informed me her son lived around the corner and that it should be no problem to put my tent in his yard. So with a quick phone call and 5 mins later, I had met Matt. We bundled the gear into his ute and with a big thanks to his mother, we took off for his house.

Matt is a guy who is very easy to like, honest, relaxed and very genuine. As we pulled up to his house he said to me quite blatenly that "He loved his family and if I was some physcop-wierdo and messed with them, he would hunt me down". Is funny but from that moment I liked him even more.

I got my tent out and did the best to try set it up using a replacement pole of a fishing rod I had found whilst walking that day, as you could imagine, it was about as sucssesful as trying to stop a boat sinking by bailing water with a shot glass. Matt noticed my pitiful attempts and came out to give me a hand. Well more than that.. he gave me a new tent, and then told me that it was not just for the night, that he wantedme to take it for the rest of the trek! What a legend! After getting a lesson on how it went up, we had it up and ready in a few minutes. From here the rest of the family made their way out to meet the stranger in their yard. After a few laughs and getting to know everyone they invited me in for dinner of steak, rice, vegies and beans, washed down with a couple of Dr Peppers, - heaven!!

It ended up being a great night with us sitting up to almost midnight chatting and sharing stories over a bottle of wine. By a huge coincedence, Matt has a guy from Colombia living with them for a month or so. He is the local soccer coach and Matt was good enough to offer him a room while he waits for his apartment to be ready. So at around midnight, I thanked them all very much and crawled into my new tent for a sleep I was craving. Honestly I could have stayed up for much longer chatting with these new great bunch of people that I was lucky enough to have come across, beautiful people all round!

Up at 6am Matt, Jonny, Matts sons and myself sat down for some of Jonnies finest eggs for breakfast. The eggs tasted just like the usual breakfast from Colombia, Jonny turned it on he did, was a ripper breaky!
With breakfast done I went back out to begin organizig my gear for the day. I had managed to roll up my mattress and sleeping bag when I felt a presence behind me. I turned around to find two police officers coming across the lawn. I am used to cops wanting to check me out by now, so I told them my passport was just there and asked if I could continue on with packing my tent while they checked it out. "No son, we need to ask you a few questions" came the reply! "What" I asked them. Seems the night before, at the church where I had met Matts mother at, had been broken into and robbed. I could not beleive it. I asked them at what time this happened and was told when I was there! They began the search through all my tent and bag and obviously found nothing. They apologized and wished me the best of luck and took off. Matt had been at work when this happened and arrived back a few minutes after they had gone. He had actually called the sherrifs office when he had heard from his mother about what had happened and vouched for me which I really appreciated. It definetly was an interesting morning. I have now been woken up or greeted by skunks, coyotes and police officers to date, I guess now I am heading south I better prepare for a battle with a bear or an alligator!

With that interesting experience out of the way I kicked on south. Today it rained all day, and heavily. I am know aware that my water proof gear has been taking a hiding over the last 7 weeks and now is only semi water proof, especially the shoes, with a couple of holes in them the water was in there and amongst it all within a few seconds, gotta love walking 20kms with saturated feet!! Luckily I have just recieved a new set of shoes from Keen Footwear and will be breaking them in shortly. The ascics I have used for the first part of the trek have been awesome, the best pair of walking shoes I have ever used. Thanks a heap to the crew at De Grandis Cycle and Sport in Geelong, real good stuff! 

Tomorrow I have around 30kms to cover to arrive in the town of St Genevieve. Matt has offered to come down and meet me there in the afternoon. We will then take my cart down another 75kms to a town where his sister in law lives. Then we will come back to St Genevive and I will be able to cover these 75kms over the next few days with a lot lighter load.

A big thanks to Matt and his family for all they did for me. It was great to be around such a beautiful family, you guys really are blessed for what you have. Matt told me that night when he sees what he has, a loving wife, great children, a roof over his head and food on the table, he feels like the richest man in the world - what great words, and how very true...

Hopefully the worst of the rain has passed over us now and I can get back into covering some longer distances. Lets wait and see...