We left our shelter this morning at 4.30am, daybreak. Our boots were too wet to wear so it was time to get out the back ups. This meant sneakers and there was no way they were going to absorb the shock of the packs and our body weight.

Our packs were sodden and the water was draining off of them right down our backs and into our pants. We were walking in something approaching a trance. The fatigue was heavy. There was no way we could have gone off road in this condition and we had to forfeit the canal route.

At around 7am we heaved ourselves into Wurtsboro (40.34), stopped for an hour, dried out as much as possible, ate an obscene amount of food for breakfast and carried on. We were finally able to pick up the canal route again at the Hornbeck Basin (39.63). This was undoubtedly the most serene and beautiful section of the entire canal.
Eventually the 209 crosses the canal again and at this point the canal is difficult to locate but we come across a further stretch of well kept grassy towpath and lock 50 before walking on route 209 until we reach Philipsport Road (34.32). It turns out, after speaking to some locals that prostitutes and public houses were common in canal era Philipsport.

After many more miles, a fractured foot and various other headaches, like being thrown off a golf course finally we pulled into Ellenville (27.60) at 5pm, much earlier than previous evenings but then we had started at 4.30 in the morning. In over twelve hours we had covered about 14 miles and we were starving. We checked into a motel, the only time we did this on the trip, threw down our packs and went for dinner at MacDonald’s. We had so much junk food it would shame Ronald McDonald but it was so good. We showered, did laundry, repacked and now we are settled into our hotel room for the night. An absolute necessity considering last night’s storm and several other unfortunate events today.