Back on the trail today (my day count isn’t going to include zero days). We finished up some of the heavier ‘luxury’ foods for breakfast that we’d bought in anticipation of our day off (I had even carried a bottle of wine that we drank yesterday). This included cheese, bread, tomatoes, and avocados. Being low on food is one of the easiest ways to convince yourself to keep moving forward to the next town and resupply. We came back out on to the beach to finish up the last 5km and left the beach heading towards the next forest. This next part started with a very steep climb up farmland with some great views back over the beach and area that we’d just come through. The trail had some pretty vicious descents and ascents over the next few kms. The trail notes mentioned it as “steep and slippery”, which it definitely was. Although with very minimal rain you could certainly see conditions were better for us than a lot of others who had gone before us. We finished up this trail around 4pm and decided to keep going for another but into the next trail to try and hit a stream we’d been targeting for the night. We weren’t low on water but you always tend to conserve when your not 100% sure of the next refill spot so we’d been drinking less than we wanted, then a few kms up the next gravel road we came across this great little spot with some free filtered water! We refilled and chugged a bunch there and then quickly tramped our way over the remaining track to reach the stream. We passed a group of six fellow hikers who’d been at the olive garden with us last night and seemed to be doing some sort of driving/walking combination. Then we came across the stream we’d been aiming for and pitched our tent right on a rock next to the stream. The other six passed us and went up to the road but unfortunately as we were at the best point they kept coming back down to the stream including doing a full body wash… In keeping with our New Year’s tradition we were soundly asleep well before midnight.