I woke up the morning of the 7th of May feeling physically quite well, after having my best sleep since I started. That is, aside from my feet (or heels rather).

It was another beautiful day for hiking. As usual, I set off early from Waalegh campsite and made to it Mount Dale. Total distance was around 22 km.

It was Tuesday and as expected I had the trail to myself; that is, apart from the odd kangaroo.

On my way, I passed through Beraking campsite perhaps late morning and feeling pretty strong I pushed on to Mount Dale, arriving there around 2 pm.

The path to Mount Dale was tougher than expected, this was due to the long steep incline and the midday sun (although it wasn't particularly hot, I was feeling it). The path up was proliferated with bull-ants which meant that I had to discern my rest stops carefully.

I set up camp at Mount Dale, as I still wasn't quite sure how I felt about camping in an open shelter, yet (what about spiders and mice?!). Plus, I wasn't feeling particularly social at this point, and there is a good chance you had to share the Shelter if you're on your own.

Although I hadn't crossed paths with anyone for a couple of days, I noted in the log book that someone called 'Black Hat' was just ahead of me. I assumed that this was a tour group as they listed only their 'name' and the date and ignored the other 5 columns. I was pretty happy not to overlap with the tour group.

On the morning of the 8th of May I woke up with the intention of getting through another 20 kms or so. My mind was feeling heavy this morning, as I shuffled onward towards my first stop. I was battling my negativity. My inner critic.

I was, for some unknown reason, contemplating dying and realising my fear of it. It was around then that I bumped into a fellow traveler, who was moving in the opposite direction: Greg. He was near the end of his journey, 61 years and his family were meeting him at the end. He was a breath of fresh air. He gave me a few recommendations and we went our separate ways.

We really are social beings.

After Greg pulled me from my thoughts, I had a realisation that felt like an antidote to my moment of internal pain. That is, that I didn't have to get this life 'right'. There was no right. So, what if I failed miserably. It's not easy being a being who's been dropped onto planet earth, is it? It sounds kind of simple, but it felt like a wonderful salve to my immediate suffering. I guess the crux of it is that we can't see the greater picture.

Unknowingly I seemed to have powered through the section to Brookton campsite, which I believe was around 8 km's from Mt Dale, arriving there around 10 am. I happened to meet a day hiker named Brad, but we didn't chat. It could have been my imagination but I felt that people's walls came down when they had been on the trail for a while, at least I sensed that in Greg and similarly myself.

I continued on to Canning campsite, after adding to my water stocks. The weather was perfect, though perhaps a little warm in the sun. Not a cloud in the sky anyway.

It was around 1 pm when I reach Canning, and my feet were killing me. They had been hurting all along but it was around now that I was starting to wonder if perhaps they weren't going to adapt after all. The pain centered on the back of my heals.

Interestingly I finally caught up with the tour group 'Blackhat', which wasn't actually a tour group but a 6'2'' solid looking individual covered in tats, who wore a Black hat: his trail name, I guess.

When I arrived he had a fire going, where he boiling his billy. Up until that point I had been aware that it was fire danger season and therefore fires were prohibited. He confirmed that this had been lifted on the 7th of May.

Immediately he struck me as someone highly intelligent, probably due to his recall of past events. He relayed some stories of his time walking from Singapore to Malaysia in the 80's, much to the bewilderment of the residents there. Most notably, he had recently stocked up. The trail had recently crossed a highway and he'd had the nearest supermarket drop some supplies on the trail. This would have been somewhat normal, but he advised that he was now lugging about around 28 kilos, which double the weight I was carrying.

Anyway, Blackhat moved on and I rested for the afternoon, deciding to brave the shelter this evening.

I woke on the 9th of May, somewhat exhausted. My sleep had been poor, mainly because there were numerous strange noises that I can hear through the wood bed frame, during the night. This meant that my mind was more active than I would have liked.

Anyway I moved on towards Monadocks campsite, which was approximately 16 km's away. The pain in my heels was now consistent and distracting from my experience. I found myself changing the way I walked at various points to shift the areas of pressure. I even tried focusing on the pain as a meditative exercise, which seemed to work for a while.

My optimistic side imagined that the earth was doing reflexology on me and that it was only a matter of time before my body adapted.

Although less than I walked the previous day, by the time I arrived at Monadocks, I was buggered and in pain. I took my shoes off, spread out my gear and noticed an Aldi shopping bag sitting on the Shelter bench. I was hopeful that someone had left some goodies, which was kind of evil - but I needed some distraction.

Perhaps amazingly I had a look in the bag where there was an entire watermelon. I knew that watermelon's were great for rehydration, so I was initially excited, but this was tempered by the thought that someone may return for their watermelon?! It was an absurd thought, but not as strange as the idea of someone carrying a whole watermelon whilst hiking this trail.

I had a knife with me so I was pretty sure that I was going to thoroughly enjoy this watermelon but wanted to check the logs first. Amazingly, for the past 5 days or so people had been commenting about the watermelon. Some people were fearful that it was off, others stated that they didn't have a knife and weren't confident that they could eat it all themselves. My decision was therefore made. I would attempt to eat the whole watermelon.

I think I powered through the first half, and then the next quarter and felt so much better for it.

A couple of other hikers arrived at dusk who were able to enjoy the last quarter: Aiden, Michelle and David.

Aiden was an experienced hiker. Whilst David and Michelle were retired marathon runners, who had got into thru hiking. We were all aiming to be at Nerang campsite the following day.

To be continued...