Well I sit here in Whakatane, with the family, my sister and her family, and Lisa and have just got back from a wonderful dinnner at the local club with all. Disappointment pervades my thoughts but pride as well at completing 475 km's of pretty much continous running, with a little sleep and some eating chucked in the middle.

Wanted to make the east coast but both my shins just packed it in with 20 km's to go. People have told me how hard it is to get through shin splints and believe you me I now know first hand. Glass is what it feels like and every step is a killer. Made the call tonight not to run through this as I've got ideas for more running this year and I don't want to jeapordise this. A stress fracture would not be fun!!

Once again thank you everyone for your great support. There are some fabulous people out there and this country is an amazing place. There are also some very couragious people who have endured some horific burns injuries who are just getting on with it. I'm proud to have been part of their lives, all be it very briefly.

I would also like to thank the many company supporters who have provided good and services throughout this venture. Your support is in many cases automatic and in some case unprompted!!

I also want to take this opportunity to thank Gary Nicholson, my crew member from day 1. He has been awesome and has helped the process greatly. Justin, thank you too for those days of running, we had a lot of fun, and met some great people.

I still believe the budist 'it just is' concept is lacking in the human emotion of 'aversion' and 'attraction'!

I have attraction to the joy of running!!

All the best, Dave Walker

Awesome to be in Rotorua, a long day but fabulous support from Bruce and Shirley from Taupo, organising a physio to do some work on the legs, the Rotorua fire Service, Jeff and the boys helping to raise money in the town centre this afternoon, and then the icing on the cake, Chris and Kerris with their fantastic property, Aria's Farm Holiday Homes.

Thanks everybody for ongoing support.

Dave was feeling good today and even managed to knock out an extra 8.5kms towards Rotorua this afternoon.  He has got sore lips which the wind is aggravating so we'll have to come up with some way of protecting them tomorrow.

Thanks to the Taupo Fire Brigade for putting us up tonight and to Bruce and Shirley for the company on the run and the roast dinner, it should keep Dave fueled up for a while.

Planning on starting at 5:00am tomorrow with just over 70k's to Rotorua.

Well, a pretty good day today, we made an early start to it and got onto the road to Turangi early as I was pretty keen to at least get an afternoon in Turangi if at all possible. First 40km excellent, really found my legs, ( was a little worried from the long day yesterday that I wouldn't) Started to slow up a little and by the time we got to Kuratau Junction was begining to feel that tiredness in the legs that creeps in after 40-50km's.

Walked/jogged into Turangi down those great big hills that give you an awesome view of the lake and then found that we had been give some accomodation again at The Bridge Fishing Lodge, thanks Kent!!

Have downed a huge pastabake that Lisa prepared for all of us and now head for bed, a 4am start tomorrow to get out of the way of all the home coming traffic around Turangi.

See you all soon, thanks for all the support,

Dave

What awesome scenery it was today on the Forgotten Highway. I've managed to post photos from the last couple of days to the Facebook page but the computer battery is about to die and everyone is pretty tired from a long day of 14hrs and 83km's.

Thanks to Central Park Motor Inn in Taumarunui for giving Dave a room tonight. He needs it.

We set out 5:20 am this morning and after the legs warmed up Dave was going good all day, so much so that after arriving in Whangamomona he carried on and did an extra 5kms to shorten tomorrows run slightly.

The scenery today was awesome and with very little traffic on the road it was perfect to run on.  The hills weren't even as big as Dave was expecting and he even ran up the biggest run.

 A huge thanks go out to Geoff and Penny from the Whangamomona Hotel for giving us food and lodgings and everything else we asked for.  If you haven't been down the Forgotten Highway and visited The Republic of Whangamomona add it to the list of places to see.

Thanks also to the visitors and locals here who donated money to the Challenge.

Not much cell phone coverage today and tomorrow will probably be just as bad, but I'll try and tweet when I can. We are planning on starting about 4:00am tomorrow to try to get most of the running done by the heat of mid afternoon.

 Gaz

Would like to thank everyone for their wishes of support and their interest in our endeavours. Especially the Berquist family at the 40k mark and Graeme Hill, New Plymouth Fire Fighter for running the last 6km's with me. Thankyou to Noel Webby for opening up Stratford Fire Volunteer Brigade headquarters for us and a lovely unknown Maori lady in Parikaka Road for her enthusiasm

I'm having trouble posting photos direct to this site over gprs but I've managed to post some from day 1 to the Cape2Cape Facebook page , you can view them here

At the 40km mark we stopped for a water topup outside the Berquist family's home. They were kind enough to come see if we needed any help and when we explained what Dave is up to they made a donation to the Cape2Cape Challenge.

Thank you to Luke, Jana, Jacob, Tracey and Karl. Hope you enjoy keeping track of Dave's progress.

We are looking for runners and pacers for all legs of Cape2Cape. If you are in the area and would like to join us for a day, or just a few hours, please email Dave at dw1@xtra.co.nz.

The route for Cape2Cape has been posted to the Course page.

 

From the 5th of January this will show Dave's position as he runs from New Plymouth to East Cape.