Day 25 Burlington to Standish Hickey Park (42 miles)

My knees are aching, my back is aching, my bites are itching. Wouldn't change it though. I left the deepest darkest forest I have ever seen with a goal to get to Standish-Hickey camp ground and my take my chance to swim in the Eel River. I pulled over in a town called Miranda, population of 4 with 3 being farm animals. The menu was a bit thin so I took the coffee to go. Next stop was Phillipsville. Population, no one you could call human. 3rd stop was a town called Gaberville. I stopped at a quaint little cafe and sat on the porch to eat my bacon and egg bagle and do some people watching. Something didn't feel quite right as I noticed a zombie to town size ratio that was way out of proportion. I was concerned that I had arrived in the town that was the meeting or crossing point for all the west coast zombies. There was also a strange fashion trend amongst them in that they all had green wristbands. Could this be some kind of zombie tagging system thats been devised to keep tabs on their where abouts? Not quite. The reason was there was a weekend long rave in one of the local valleys and ravers over here tend to look like the homeless. Poor Gaberville had become the Sunday morning come down location. Where the children of the 90's had the service stations, the children of the West coast just take over the closest town. The people watching could have gone on all day but I had miles to cover.

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The roads went over the Eel River a few times and the shallow water looked rather tempting but the only way to get to swim in it at this stage would have been to take a header off the bridge. Once I rolled into camp I set my tent up, washed my clothes and headed off for swim. The river was quite low because of the recent drought but it filled out a quarry area perfectly.

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I spent a long afternoon floating in the warm water and sun bathing on the hot rocks. It's very tempting to have an extra day here and give the saddle a miss. If the mosquitos lay off me as well tonight then Standish Hickey will be my favourite camp so far.