Friday, 7 April 2023, day // Good Friday; Paris - Joe's Hill - London
Good Friday
17 km
9:10 AM
88°
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9:38 AM
leave Poland
20 km
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10:15 AM
34.6 km
Carver Way and A1
I realize I have lost my old, clear, dry bag, with my bed roll. Have had it since ’98, when I kayaked down the Pecos River, for a week. My small inflatable bed pad, my cotton sleep sack were inside. When I fail to double strap everything down on my motorcycle, I lose something, as the roads are so uneven and jarring.
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Joe’s Hill
10:40 AM – 11:25 AM
The sun is too bright. Can’t read my phone due to the glare, the sun directly overhead. I’m on top of Joe’s Hill. Came here to do drone photography. I’m about to leave and realize I lost my pair of glasses somewhere. Have backtracked and double-tracked and no luck. But it’s appropriate, as my grandfather had one pair of glasses with him for all his years and he was worried about losing them. His eyesight was failing and he needed stronger glasses, but it seems he never lost or broke the one pair he had.
The temperature on my thermometer says 103°, but it has been inside my backpack sitting here under the sun. I know the temperature is only in the 90s, but the heat and sun is relentless with no shade anywhere. I don’t know how they worked out here one hindered years ago, cutting this road, no shade, no water.
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11:58 AM
55 km
Main Camp
JMB Store closes on Sunday between noon and four. And holidays, like today. Good Friday is a national holiday in Kiribati. I got in JMB just in time. Had a few words with Bob Bryden regarding shipping the native crafts I have bought, as well as items I’ve found from the natural environment (sand, shells, soils). It seems that nothing will leave here until the boat for Tarawa in May or June. Or maybe it goes to Fiji. I’ll figure it out.
But it’s nice to know Anna and her son Bob, who owns and manage JMB, as I feel like a regular. They stayed open a little extra for me so I could buy things. I was the last one to leave. $50 got me two cans of Spam, a can of corned beef, a container of some kind of custard powder that I saw Iou using, half a dozen cans of soda, half a dozen bags of M&Ms. I’m living large.
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12:23 PM and leaving for Tabwakea.
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12:40
Tabwakea
I try to find the home of Poe, who is supposed to be making a shirt for me and repairing a pair of shorts. I found her place once before, inadvertently, but I circle around and around amongst the undulating roads, the ramshackle homes of the village. I can’t find it. I stopped by her aunts, the teacher, Tureta, and we sit out back in her kia-kia by the lagoon and talk.
She wants me to be comfortable, makes sure there is a pandanus sleeping mat for me to sit, as compared to just the bare wood of the platform. Tells her granddaughter to bring me two pillows. I don’t need them, but they arrive anyway. and while I will drink the local rainwater, another grandchild has run off to a local store to buy a bottle of water for me.
She offers me food, and I only eat a couple bites, taking the container of papaya, noodles, and some kind of local green with me when I left.
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1:49 PM
London
45 minutes at Joe’s Hill. 23 minutes at Main Camp. One hour in Tabwakea. Essentially two hours and 10 minutes, from Paris to Tabwakea
Which means I could have made it from Paris to London in 2 1/2 hours.
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