It is insane how windy it was last night, howling in the trees and across the mountain tops. It made me reconsider the wisdom of camping high up rather than in the gap below, however, right now is not a great time to change our mind. Hoping that my 'tissue paper' tent, it's called Cuban fiber but really looks like tissue paper, will hold up to the gale.

Dawn slowly brightens the sky and we are peeking out to see the nights' damage. Nothing serious but best of all very little rain. The ground is pretty much dry but the 5C/41F feels pretty chilly. The pocket rocket stove is boiling up our litre of water for porridge and coffee. Nothing tastes better and the high test porridge holds us for more than half the day.

It is still a struggle for us to get organized and on the trail in an expedient manner in the morning. Hard to understand when everything you have fits in one bag. It is 9 and we are stepping forth with vigor, fortified by sleep and food. The path is up slightly but not difficult, we dare not say that maybe we have beaten the rain and will luck out with another dry day.

It is not even a good idea to have those thoughts. We are walking for about an hour and the rain starts. This is not just your basic drizzle or shower, this is pelting bullet rain, soak you in a second rain, it is all we can do to get into our rain jackets and cover up. Arlene is wearing her fashionable garbage bag skirt again and I am wrapping a groundsheet around my waist. There is nothing to do but walk, so we walk...for hours...in the rain... my mind is wandering, I am warm, my feet, hands and head are warm, I'm in a warm bubble, walking along like an autotron on a trail in the woods. It feels otherworldly. I am watching myself walk along, the trail circumvents the valley fairly high up, so there is cloud and howling wind above on one side and dropping away many 100 feet into the valley filled with mist on the other. Swollen streams and riverlets dissect the trail at unpredictable intervals occasionally requiring some acrobatics of balance with packs, poles, rain gear, skirts and then the warm bubbles move on.

Things are changing now, as the trail climbs at  a more vertical angle we're sweating like crazy, very unfortunate that the great rain jackets which are supposed to keep us dry are now acting like plastic bags in which to collect our perspiration. But the wind and rain is not abating and it is too cold to remove the jackets. What to do but trudge on wet on the inside and outside. We have reached Blue  Mountain Shelter and like just about everyone else on the trail who weren't smart enough to go into town last night before the predicted rain, we are trying to have a quick bite to eat for lunch. We can't stay long because it is much to cold to stay still. We descend a long hill into Unicoi Gap and there is a line up for the shuttle to a hostel, clear some people have the presence of mind to get out of the rain, we do not. Scott is leaving the trail and going home, his wife is ill, we are all sorry to see him go. He is giving away his food and like vultures, those of us brave (or stupid) enough to push on are clawing for the spoils. I scored a mac and cheese bacon flavoured SideKicks and a chicken and vegetable pasta. More weight but food never gets wasted on the trail.

We have 3.6m/5.8km to get to our planned destination, how hard can that be? We are clearly not thinking straight since a little closer examination of the map would have shown us that we have a 1200 foot climb over Rocky Mountain, down the other side and then another 1 mile up the next mountain past Indian Gap.  We are setting off, good thing we don't fully understand what is in store, there is no let up over and down, the trail is streaming mud and the rocks are treacherously slippery. A few hundred feet up the trail we meet an older couple of Georgian Trail worker volunteers out repairing the trail. We tell them how grateful we are for the fantastic condition of the trails. They too are trail magic. Even through the rain we see how beautiful the forest is. Wide open with soring trees and brilliant moss and lichens.

It doesn't seem unreasonable that if a campsite is called Cheese Factory that you might expect there to be something there telling you that. It is clearly written on the map. I am exhausted and exasperated since here are many camping spots but no one is here and there is no sign, it is still raining insanely hard and this is much farther than I had thought it would be. I am trying to set my pack down to minimize how wet it will get, right! I have my tent out and up in record time, throw in my pack and sit down and look at my boots. Now I don't know how far back Arlene is. A young guy shows up but he clearly can't think either and doesn't remember seeing anyone on the trail. I know that can't be right. Finally, there she is, weary, wet and very happy to be at Cheese Factory. The stove is on and water is boiling, hot tea never tasted so good and the corn chowder was delicious. There is a stream a little way down a path so we have water. Water everywhere but we are quite dehydrated. Everything is wet. How do you dry your socks, shirt, jacket, underwear in the rain? We are in our damp sleeping bags listening to the thundering rain on the tents.