By Elliot

When we were still hiking with Stephen, a topic that came up a few times was trail revelations. You have a lot of time to think while walking, and sometimes you can have a level of insight that you can find profound. For Stephen, I think the biggest revelation was that only by letting go of his desire to slow down and smell the roses would he actually be able to slow down.

My revelation yesterday was to do with what someone else said on the trail: don’t worry, all the problems you left behind by getting on the trail will still be there when you get off the trail. It’s true, but getting a break and some distance from your problems and worries can still be helpful. I don’t know exactly what my next move is career-wise, but for the next few months, I don’t have to worry about that, which is freeing.

Enough pompous philosophizing. Today I got to try the Whittakers peanut slab ice cream.

The Whittaker’s peanut slab consists of milk chocolate and peanuts, which are 35% of the bar by weight. As hungry hikers, the peanut slab is a miracle food. It’s delicious, but also balances the fast sugar from the chocolate with protein and copious amounts of fat from the peanuts. So I was delighted to find out that an ice cream version existed! Since it’s been a few days since my last peanut slab, I thought now would be a good time to try the ice cream. The verdict: mediocre. I will stick to the non ice cream version from now on.

We also went to the Hamilton botanical gardens today, which made the rest day so worth it. It is a veritable theme park of a botanical. There were so many different types of gardens, one next to the other. For lovers of botanical gardens, I think this one would be an international destination. It’s the botanical garden equivalent of a three Michelin starred restaurant.

This evening we had the privilege of cooking for our hosts, which is the least we could do for the level of hospitality and generosity they have shown us.

Tomorrow, it’s back on the trail for us!