Day 28, 18 miles, Fort Pickens

Day 28, 18 miles, fort Pickens campground
Greenleaf wakes me up this morning. I’m like: “Huh? What?”. But I soon see why he woke me up. The sunrise is amazing! I’m only half awake but I’m snapping tons of pictures. Soooo pretty!! We love it! 

After staring at the sun for much longer than is good for my eyes, we pack up and continue walking. We get back on the bike path to make our life easier and it’s not like I’ve never walked through dunes before haha. Greenleaf and I come up with a little song; “if you’re spoilt and you know it, raise your hand”. This trail and the Te Araroa have made us realize how spoilt and lucky we are to have seen and hiked all these amazing places. We count our blessings but are prone to whining haha.

Several miles later we leave the national sea shore area and arrive at a shopping plaza with a few breakfast places to choose from. We love the one we pick, they have delicious smoothies and pancakes. 
We decide to pack out some sandwiches for dinner like we did yesterday but Greenleaf also wants to sample the chowder only a half a mile further along. I’m stuffed so I don’t order anything. I do sacrifice myself and help him finish his order of shrimp. They are delectable. Against his Greenleaf nature he also orders a giant piece of chocolate cake, who is this person? I’m still stuffed so unfortunately can only steal a few bites. 

Finally we put a stop to the gluttony and we walk on. There is some road construction going on so even poor Greenleaf does some beach walking. Single lane road without a bike path is not a good option. Again it’s beautiful but a tough and slanted walk. We soon retreat to the road. It’s two lanes again so we’re good. 

We’ve reserved a space at the Fort Pickens campground and the trail goes right through there so we set up our tent and slack pack the last mile to the end. We reminisce about the trail and it feels weird to finish this way. There is no big mountain to climb, no border reached, just a small plaque at a seemingly random spot after a bridge and then you reach the historic fort. We enjoy exploring the fort and soak in the sunset while eating our sandwiches on top of one of the walls. We’re done with the hike. How weird.