Two nights here has given us some interesting noises, I have found it hard to stay asleep. Cows, sheep, ducks and possums it is like a funny farm. We started early, it took a bit of convincing to get Rowan moving but we got up nice and early. Just as we were getting into the swing of things a gentleman who had slept in his car got chatting with us. Andrew has been cycling around NZ a lot and he lives in Wellington. About an hour later we said our goodbyes and exchanged details, another offer for a place to stay later on the track. 7.30am we are walking out of the park, but get chatting to the lady who is cleaning the bathrooms. That’s all good we have a nice chat then continue on. It is pretty easy boring road walking, but it sure is hard on your feet! I got a blister the day before from my walk so I was hoping to not make that worse. Roughly 12km into town, we go through a road works area with lollipops at both end. The lady says go just keep left. We get into town about 10am, not bad, we took a few breaks in the shade. Both hungry we head to Subway. We take our time around town and discuss where we will sleep for the evening. There is a freedom camping site a couple of kilometres away but says nothing about tents. We decide not to risk it and walk to the holiday park 4km out. Can’t help ourselves but op shop while here, we don’t buy anything. Then off to the supermarket for some goodies. We have a good 20+ day tomorrow so we want some egg sandwiches to fuel us. I am really struggling to walk, my feet are sore and I lack motivation. We make it 900m from the camp and take a break.

We have a refreshing beer to get us motivated to finish the walk. We are nearly at the campsite we can see it in the distance and a lady pulls up and asks if we are heading there. Yes, we are. She let’s us know we are able to stay for free, she is one of the managers but the owner has gone to Christchurch a few days. Wow we haven’t had that before. The place is definitely the greenest one we have been to. A lot of trees, a pond and of course ducks! I would say 80% of people here are permanent, not sure how quite it will be but I am interested to find out. So far everyone is nice and the place is pretty clean.