Conquering Khuntan/The End Is Nigh!!.

Thursday, 16 October: It's taken two and a half days for us to get to this point from Lampang but we are now not much more than a stone's throw from home and Ros has gone back there to make sure that all is in place for the big finale tomorrow. The last 3 days, including today, have seen progress made at just 19, 21 and 15 km per day respectively though I have beaten Doi Khuntan during that time and we can expect a relatively flat and straight-forward finish tomorrow. I wont say that it's been easy because it hasn't but it hasn't been the bogey man that I thought it was going to be either. Coming at the end of the walk I think played a part as well as having come so far over the last 6 weeks, it was going to take an awful lot to break my spirits at this stage. Having said that, I wouldn't recommend anyone else walk it as you really do need eyes in the back of your head regardless of whether you go with the traffic, as I did, or you follow the good old Highway Code and walk against it. It also confirmed my long-held belief that, as much as I love living in Thailand, there are way too many cerebrally-challenged people in this country allowed behind the wheel of anything bigger than a dodgem car (Ros included!)

We've been able to use the tent the last two nights and I think getting some decent sleep was key to keeping up a decent pace despite the climbs that getting through Khuntan involves. Many thanks to the 'boys in brown' at Khuntan Service Area for allowing us to use their car park last night and the shower facilities in the police station. Free Coke and coffee too! There was supposed to be a security presence in the service area itself after it closed at around 5.30 but as no-one had showed up by 6.30 yesterday evening, we decided to move. We had been joined by a number of other vehicles there by the time we got up this morning. I think that's the fourth time on the walk we've used police facilities and perhaps we should have used more earlier on in the journey. I'm now sitting in the garden of one of Ros' old school friends whose home is, rather conveniently, less than a hundred meters from the Chiang Mai - Lampang Highway. This is where we'll pick up the walk tomorrow and where we'll pitch the tent up for the last time tonight though we could do with being a bit further away from the highway!

The plan from hereon in is to have three of the older secondary school kids, Guide, Beer and Eve, come out here later this afternoon and spend the night with us and then we will be joined here by Ros' father, Da, tomorrow morning for the walk up to Northern Region Industrial Estate. We will then meet the rest of the kids from the Foundation plus Frankie, Anya and Rosie, our own children, at the entrance to the estate and make our way to one of our sponsor companies, Driessen Aircraft Interior Systems (Thailand) Ltd. who will host us all for lunch for an hour or so from 11.30. From there on, we will walk the final 5 km or so back the Foundation in Makrua Chae. There will be a small home-coming party later in the afternoon after we've cleaned up and we hope that some of our friends from Lamphun and Chiang Mai will join us for that. On Saturday evening, there will be the last of the walk-related charity nights at The Pub in Chiang Mai from 7pm. We hope that we'll get a good turnout for that and the whole event will end on a high.

It's certainly been an experience and it's going to take a while for us to know exactly how much we have raised these last 6 weeks or so as other people have been raising and pledging money on our behalf all over the place and it will take some time to get it all in. I'm thinking of getting a commemorative t-shirt made up when I get back but I can't decide which slogan to use; I Survived Walking Through Khuntan or I Survived Six Weeks On My Jack With Ros. Maybe you can help me to decide. And finally, a message to all those who said I couldn't do it and then pledged to pay me if I did (you know who you are and there were plenty of you!);

GET YOUR MONEY READY!!