Day Fifteen - Change of Scene.

Okay, I apologise if the following is a little brief; I have a 15 minute window in which to make this post (I will explain in a bit).

I woke up, etc etc and got onto the road at about 9:45 again, I need to stop being so lazy and start getting up / heading off earlier... Anyhow, I knew that today was going to involve a lot of uphill, so in the same way that I prepared myself for the day when I was cycling the blue-ridge parkway, I decided that it didn't matter how long it would take me to do the miles, and I would take my time on the hills. I've now decided that I hate short and steep hills, but I would quite happily go uphill at 8 or 9mph indefinitely. The countryside was the same as it had been for the past two or three days, lots of farms and country houses. There were a lot of run-down looking houses and farms today, some that look as though they hadn't been occupied in years. All of the animals were looking a bit thin, I guess this part of Virginia is poorer than where I've been before.

There was an absolutely god-awful smell about this morning too, and I'm 100% sure it wasn't me. I'm quite used to holding my breath whilst going past roadkill, but this was kind of like a manure-type spin-off. Whatever it was, it was awful.

Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, everything about where I was changed. I went into a deep forest area, which was gradually climbing uphill. As I said before, I didn't mind inclines like this, so I quite enjoyed this part.

I went upwards for what seemed like ages, but the coming down from the top was amazing. The last 15 miles or so were almost all downhill, and the roads were the stuff that Top Gear would dream of. The only thing I can compare it to would be the roads on The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift, when they're racing up in the mountains. The roads were smooth (though there were parts that had been really awfully tarmac'd, and wouldn't be uncommon on something like Rogue Traders), the air was fresh from the river that was running along side, and everything was good about the rod that I was going along.

I'd better skip forward to where I am now, as my time is running low. The town that I am in now is called Damascus (no, not in Syria), and I stumbled upon like a massive hikers convention thing. There are people with long hair, massive beards and more tye-dye than I've ever seen in one place before. The people all seem really friendly, and in the first hour of me being here, I've inspired someone to go to the A.C.A. to do a trip similar to mine. Cool.

So I'm currently in an 'internet cafe', where I get 15 minutes of internet time to do this.. Though I've been more like 20 by this point. I can justify it though, I've had a lot to talk about today. It also makes a welcome change to type on a real keyboard, my iPhone keyboard drives me insane when I'm writing on this.

Tomorrow I'm headed to a place called 'Council', which is another fairly long day away. I'm coming to the tail end of the aAppalacians though (I THINK), and I hope that by this time next week I'll be on flat ground, where I can start racking up the miles.

Note for the Parents - I get awful signal here, I'll try and send a text later on if I can find somewhere where I can get some bars. :)