I thought we deserved a sleep in so today we caught the ebb tide in the afternoon. We set off around 1pm in the weak autumn sunshine. Our aim was to paddle until we found a nice camp spot, our last one for the trip. We paddled in silence, both reflecting on the trip and remembering all the good, funny, scary, beautiful things that we have experienced. It was a really nice afternoon to be on the water. The coast was rocky beach all the way up, we paddled until it started getting dark then pulled up at a point. We set our camp up on the beach and I made a fire, everything was sooo wet, but we were determined to have a fire on our last night! After a lot of tending the fire looked as though it was going to last. Ngaio had her paddling shoes off and her feet drying by the fire as soon as she could. We both have something called ‘trench foot’ and it is no fun. After 65 days of being wet and cold and still for most of the day the circulation in our feet is compromised. We both hobble around because our feet are so sore and sensitive, Ngaios are cracked and bleeding and mine are swollen and red. We had some fresh food for our last camp night, pork, fresh Vege’s and jasmine rice. It was so delicious cooking real food over a fire, something we have missed on this trip. I made us hot chocolates as it was a clear chilly night. We braved leaving the fire and dashed to the tent, getting into our sleeping bags as fast as we could. Once snuggled in to bed we both started feeling ill. After having our healthy meals every night our bodies weren’t prepared for a sugar overload! We have 21kms to paddle tomorrow to make it to where we started on September 2nd