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Beipu to 8km before Jichi Beach on Highway 11.

Today’s route passed through Hualien, a pleasant, buzzing town that is much cheaper than Taipei. Offering internet access at six hours for only 50NT, I am surrounded by teenage ‘gamers’ who play “World of Warcraft” or somesuch with an admirable amount of commitment. As I try to type and upload photographs I’m constantly bombarded by the sounds of gunshots. Terrible music blares as a girl beside me plays a dance game at full volume.

Neil and Kevin are running this morning and Candice is taking my place as the Support Team. Kevin is running a half marathon today. I’m sure he could have hoped for better conditions to attempt this 21km run, but they seem to see the weather as just adding to the challenge. Neil suffers a little today and some pain in his leg is not exactly conducive to running. We break for the afternoon so as to allow Neil to continue later and out of the sun and a pizza is rapidly devoured by the boys who after running so far seem like they haven’t eaten for weeks. Neil is certainly losing weight. This is all “par for the course”, I’m assured, but I worry he will disappear completely before too long and try to force feed him at every opportunity. This is difficult when so many hours a day are spent running, but his ravenous post-marathon appetite is quite something to marvel at.

We don’t begin again until 7pm. Candice and Kevin catch up with us around 10 o’clock, and I’m as happy to see them as I’ve ever been. At the last stop I had waited for Neil in a village that consisted of a small shop, a coastguard’s office and a streetlight. Too dark to read, I’m occupied only by wandering the pathways of my paranoid mind. Before long, I’ve half-scared myself to death and, though by no means is Taiwan a dangerous place and the time is only 8pm, I am consumed with the thought of being mauled to death by the dog I hear incessantly barking somewhere nearby.

It didn’t help my state much that the shop-owner’s poor wife, who sat buried in a blanket staring out at the black road, was not of sane mind and howled into the darkness at ten second intervals in a way that could only invoke horror films to me. I have been teased for my cowardice many times, and become a little less a fraidy-cat each day.

Kevin, Candice and I wait for Neil at various points along the road. The sound of the ocean in our ears and the countless stars in the sky, we watch the glittering light of fireflies and talk utter rubbish to pass the time. Neil completes the night in some pain and today has been, by far, the hardest for him to date.

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