Hey this is TA calling in from Day 65 of the great big walk. We are located at 1659m above sea level at a place called Petti at the foot of a huge climb up to bigugampa which is where we will end our great big walk. Great walk today. It was up and down. Over 3 different ridges. Lots of different terrace fields. One of the kinds of terraces we saw today were rice terraces where water was flowing through. We also saw some terraces of cows. There were some fields I think were being laid fallow and they were letting the cows forage through the old terraces before they were planted again.

It was a hot day. We’re down low so it is definitely much much warmer down here. So we are making sure that we’re staying well hydrated because of the heat as well as because we are down low. We actually have not been this low since day 7 of the great big walk. We will climb back up to about 2500 m tomorrow. One of the things that we’ve been enjoying is coo-coo birds. I assume they are coo-coo birds. They say coo-coo. So they say their name and I am not sure what kind of coo-coo’s there are in Nepal. I will have to go home and research that but we’ve been hearing a lot of coo-coo’s.

As we came close, we’re camped near the confluence of two khola’s today and as we came close to our camp we actually were slowed down by a buffalo jam. As we’ve come down lower, we’ve come into the territory where families keep water buffalo’s and we think they are pretty darn cute. Sort of have a face a little bit like a moose, but have some big curly horns. If you cross a moose and a cow and give them, not curly horns but horns that curl back, you get the face that only a water buffalo mum could love. So we were walking behind some water buffalos who were walking quite slowly.

Also with today’s elevation gain, we have actually crossed the 90 000 feet of elevation gained so we’ve climbed the equivalent of Mt Everest 3 times from sea level so that is fun to celebrate that and we’re starting to look at the lap. You know our second to last afternoon washy washy with our cute little water bowls. Our second to last dinner with the crew here in the field and all those kinds of things as we count down to getting picked up probably on the morning of day 67. We actually have not been sort of led in on those kinds of details.

So for today, Marian had 26 694 steps and 177 floors, 18.5 km. I had 27 816 steps, 186 floors and just shy of 18.5 km and Cam had 26 463 steps and just shy of 18 km on her fitbit. If by some chance we get 24 000 steps we might actually make 1,100,000 steps tomorrow and we rounded 670 km today. So a wonderful day. Starting to feel a little bit sad. Entering into that little transition phase of getting ready to leave the great big walk but we do have indeed one more great big walk tomorrow. A great big climb up to a place called Bigu Gompa and we hope you will join us for that walk in anyway you can. By walking, strolling, running, moving, jumping, anything that makes you happy. Take great care. Bye bye!

Total Steps for TA: 27 816 steps, 186 floors

Total Steps for Marian: 26 694 steps, 177 floors

Total Distance for TA: 18.5 km

Total Distance for Marian: 18.5 km

Great Big Walk acknowledges the support of the Memorial University of Newfoundland Quick Start Fund for Public Engagement in making these updates from the field possible.