On the road, heading south.  Our destination Whanganui, for several reasones, one the South Island needs to be done prior to winter.  Two the Tararua Ranges need to be done too, not as dangerous as the south but a lot easier in summer.  Three let’s make life easier by having a few days walk prior to climbing a mountain range.  Four Whanganui river will be a highlight of the trip and walking past it won’t be as good of an ending to our endeavour. 

Lucky for us I have a cool cousin who detoured and dropped us off at highway 3, just south of Hamilton (I hope you were not too late for work Anita!).  From there we walked roughly 1km to get a good spot to flick a thumb out.  The fog had arrived and I wasn’t sure how long it would take on a 100km road.  8min later a lovely German man picked us up and took us to Te Awamutu.  From there we walked about another 1km to make sure we were out of town to get a ride.  I had my thumb out for a bit and it wasn’t a good spot.  So we walked along with the thumb out to find a better spot and bam our second ride picked us up.  He wasn’t going far just to Kihikihi but he had a cute puppy named Luna who was very lovable.  Left in a fantastic location our third ride came along minutes later.  A kind wahine who told us all about her.  She was on her way to Te Kuiti and was happy to have company.  Fourth ride was Travis, he was on his way to New Plymouth and was more than happy to take us to the turn off to Whanganui.  Here I thought our luck would run out, the road was very quiet and minutes between cars coming.  I was wrong, 5th car to come past was a man on a mission.  He has a shop in Taumarunui, we squeezed into his box body truck and off we went.  Along the way he told us about immigrating to New Zealand with his family and how much he prefers it here.  Not long in the car he stops so we can take a picture of the view, he takes a picture of us too!

Before we know it we are in Taumarunui and it is only 12.15pm! Not bad going at all. I don’t know what goes wrong but 3 hours later we still don’t have a lift. One guy stopped to get us a taxi driver, and I politely declined. Anothed lady stopped but she was going in a different direction, she said we should stay where we are, well she was wrong. We got a few cat calls, one who thought we were American (I guess we are fat enough). The other was a “Show us your tips!” Unfortunately they were too far away for me to call back “Only if you show me your dick first.” Other strange reactions were older white haired folk giving us very disapproving shakes of their heads while saying no. Luckily 4km down the road is the campground and it is on the Whanganui river. After 4 hours with no luck we hitch and walk our way to the campground. One lady stops to see where we are heading and she is the campground owner. Rowan says “we will probably see you at your place.” A man on a bike who we recognised from Town arrived at the campground. He is touring around New Zealand by cycling. Alan has been cycling around the world for 5 years.

Tomorrow we plan to walk another 3km to get us on the turn off to Whanganui, fingers crossed we get picked up. The campground is really nice, I am listening to the river now and it is quite soothing.