After I signed off last night we were still having mat issues. Rowan took them into the shower with him and found 6 holes! One on mine and five on his. By this time it was getting late but we wanted to fix them so we headed to the TV room and 45min later they were fixed, so much for an early night! The next day we were awake around 5am the weather for the day looks atrocious, we decide to stay so we can miss the weather and buy more patches for our mats. Onto the scooters we head off and the rain begins. Luckily the wind hasn’t gotten really bad yet. We end up spending the morning, going from shop to shop looking for a rain jacket for Rowan, with bad weather forecasted for our trip through the range it really needs to be better than what he has. Afterwards we get more food from the supermarket for dinner tonight and head to a kebab place for lunch. We get back to the campground just as it starts really coming down. We got rather wet and headed inside to dry off. The rest of the afternoon was spent drying off and relaxing. We were in bed by 8pm, nice and early for tomorrow.

Scootering down the road after 8am on our way to the shops. We end up at Kmart where they have these small bottles we have been trying to get more of. Yay this Kmart has them. It is too early for Macpac to open so we go for Subway breakfast. After sorting out Rowan’s backpack at Macpac, we go food shopping. There needs to be enough food for at least 6 days before we can resupply. With the shopping done I need to go to the pharmacy for more blister packs, here is hoping I don’t need them too much. Then we get some McDonald’s as an early lunch and head back to the campground. All our town jobs done time to sort the food. It takes 3 tables but we now have enough meals for 6 days and two extra days of mix and match if necessary.

The sea to summit mats have been deflating during the night, I am hoping that it is just a valve issue and I put some pawpaw on them before we went to the shops. Next we borrow a pen and get an idea of where we can sleep how many kilometres it will take between campsites. At the moment we have an estimated arrival at the resupply of 4 days. Only time will tell. Not sure if I have fixed our mat issues hopefully I won’t be inflating them throughout the night.

It’s not even a word but it is the best one to describe today.  I woke at 11.30pm to see the eclipse, it wasn’t that special so I didn’t wake Rowan (he was angry at me for not).  We got up and was ready pretty early.  Robyn dropped us into town before 9am. We had subway for breakfast and began walking. 2km in and I was wondering if we were there yet. We stopped about 5km in and found some shade, then continued another 5km to Bunnythorpe and had some lunch. There was a small dirt track and across the water on a log instead of using the bridge. We had stopped at the public toilets and there was a dairy. I decided I wanted an icecream and Rowan was going to get a cold drink, well the shop was bare no food in it part from a couple of coke cans. Well that was a flop. Continuing on it took us for a few km along farm land and farm roads, I don’t know how many styles we crossed but there were a lot. I fell flat over at one point when I got tripped up, luckily I didn’t damage my camera just my ego. I was annoyed that we had some other terrain, my feet were killing me but I was bothered that they were slowing us down by making a farm detour. We finally arrived into Palmerston North but still had about 9km until the campground. We had walked 17.5km. We decided to bus or scooter the last bit as we were not going to make it. We found two flamingo scooters and took them into town. It took a bit of getting used to it and we were on our way. My feet still hurt really bad on the scooter but at least we got there a lot faster. We ended up eating an early dinner at Carl’s Jr before carrying on to the campground. Finally at our destination at 6pm. Unfortunately no time to get our errands done. Rowan has to go to Macpac and we need to get all our meals sorted for the Tararua trail.

I am so exhausted I am trying to type this out and nearly falling asleep, the road walking has taken it out of me. There is not much shade which didn’t help, I drank tonnes of water but hardly went for a pee. I can see why majority if people hitch these parts as they are incredibly boring but also hard on your feet. I am glad at lunchtime that I added on some blister plasters, I am sure my feet would have been worse if I didn’t. Now summoning the energy to go brush my teeth. Better go do it before I fall asleep 😴

The day was a bit of a late start (7am), not really late but we had a big day ahead of road walking. Rowan was not up for the task and to be honest my feet were thankful! I ended up reading an entire book, Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale. Rowan read two books.

We had some neighbouring animals including ducks. There were tuna (eels) in the pond. We stayed out of the sun and enjoyed being in the shade for the day. We got talking to the neighbours and one lady Robyn came over out of the blue and offered us a ride. We are very thankful we don’t need to walk the 4km back to the track tomorrow morning.

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.

We had planned for an early start but Rowan was not well so we hung around another day. The reserve was privately owned and the guy who owned it had no family to pass it on to so it went to the local council. I took the opportunity to walk the 2.5km track around the property. There was a lot of really tall bamboo throughout. You can tell it was someone’s cared for garden rather than a full native bush walk. I took my camera with me and captured some flora & fauna. I will have to upload them sometime from my camera. We spent most of the day taking it easy, there were a few visitors to the park. Wed got talking to a couple who said we can pitch the tent in their yard in Palmerston North if we like. We may just take them up on that offer! We found a few rocks made by people in Palmerston North and Fielding.

It was a slow day and a slow start, not that it needed to be done fast.  We took our time with only 8km to walk.  The heat especially on the road has been really hard.  I think we just need to get back into the rhythm of things and do our early starts to beat the heat.  We got all packed up and ready to go, but first we need breakfst.  We got a small amount of Museli from my cousins house and we already had powdered milk.  Rowan poured the water into each cup and added the powder and we stirred our own cups.  Once the water turned into milk he opened the museli, argh it is full of weavels!  Well that is going into the bin I say.  Rowan said he is still going to drink the milk.  I take a sip “It tastes like playdough.”  Rowan takes a sip “Yes, it definitely does.”  We crack up laughing realising that it was flour not powdered milk.  We are in fits of laughter we probably woke up any sleeping campers.  Oh well a museli bar each will have to do.  At the half way point we find some shade and eat some honey sandwhiches.  We end up sitting there so long we get over taken by a French hiker who is going a lot further than us. 

Not far from our destination and Rowan yells “I though you don’t get snakes in New Zealand?!”

We arrived at the reserve and was pleasantly surprised.  We didn’t think it would be as nice as what it is.  We are surrounded by farms and wasn’t expecting much of a bush.  The birds are noisy and the bees are busy.  There is a little open shelter with chairs to sit on and a kitchenette to use.  It is all free but there is a donation box, so I will be sure to leave something.  There are people visiting but no one else has come to stay.  You can come in a tent or self contained vehicle.  I fall asleep on the couch in no time. 

As I am writting this on the picnic table a couple of duckles came along

We both gota bit dehydrated today as we were so exposed where we walked.  Just had a solar shower, which was luke warm but better than cold!  Dinner was butter chicken that we got from a Pataka Kai, not bad at all.

Rowan is not feeling 100%, we decide to hitch a little bit further to Bulls.  There is a campground there and it is a lot cheaper than staying in a hotel!  We set off and get some breakfast at Subway.  Whanganui is a bit of a strange town.  Not many people around and I wonder how the businesses survive.  There also quite a lot of homeless people.  Apparently all the freedom camping sites around the area are full of people that are not able to find a home.  We have a few items like extra pills and op shop finds we need to post.  At the post office it is all closed up but one entry, the bags are behind the counter to stop people stealing them.  Rowan also needed to post back his Grandmas ID that he accidentally took home with him.  Our lovely neighbours back in Brooklands are taking our parcel, not that I forewarned them but they’re awesome!  We headed out of town and needed to walk about 4km to get to the right road to hitch.  It wasn’t long and a Swift picked us up.  The man was a missionary who is over looking after his father who is about to pass.  He told us all about his work (don’t worry Rowan was on his best behaviour, I just sat in the back watching the landscape pass by.  He told us a Jesus would pick up hitchhikers and it isn’t very Christian not to help people in need.  I can’t complain can I?  It got me a ride.  At the end of the ride he prayed for us.

Once in Bulls we had a quick kilometre to walk to arrive at a trail angels place to pick up a package my Nana sent to us. It had a new credit card, some paper maps and a charging dock for a smart watch Rowan scored for $2 at an op shop. From there it was another kilometre to the local campground. We got there and set up our tent. This is the first campground we have stayed at with a pool and a spa! Will have to make use of that later. By the time we faffed around we didn’t go back into town till 2pm. We got some lunch and some food for dinner. We are very close to the Taurarua Ranges that we thought it would be smart to keep our freeze dried food. Most people take 3-6 days to walk the area. We will be more like 10-15 days hehe. Tomorrow we are taking it fairly easy and aiming for a 9km-ish day. We need to ease these fat bods back into it. Plus I am feeling this heat, my hands and feet keep swelling!

For the afternoon we relaxed and read our book, had a small discussion on where we are heading and planning ahead. We took a dip in the pool then hopped into the spa to read our books. Eventually I got out and had a shower, by this time it was dinner time. I have been writting this since Rowan started getting it ready and now we have finished eating. Totally forgot about Guy Fawkes and now someone at the campground is setting them off. Lucky for us the kids sound devastated and scared so I don’t think they will set any more off.

The day started a bit late, Rowan was hard to wake and hasn’t had a very good sleep in a while so I let him lay in a bit. We had a chat to Alan the cyclist before heading off. At cowboy time 10.10am we had our thumbs out, it was raining and we got soaked. We stayed there for 20min before walking further down the road. By the time we were walking through Manunui we started regretting leaving our warm dry tent. At this point we were pretty soaked the rain had come down harder. We decided to walk to the intersection that turns off to Turangi. Now we have been hitching for over an hour and feeling a bit deflated and hungry. We go to walk back to the servo and I say should we try get to Turangi where we will be on highway 1. We debate it for a bit and end up splitting up. Rowan on the turn off to Turangi and I am on the road to Whanganui. Bam, I have two rides offered within half an hour, one a single cab ute which obviously can’t take us both. The other who seemed a bit dodgy and could have fit us both in but only wanted to take me phew. We were chatting again about staying split up and Rowan said he will just sit down to look less big and scary. He had just taken off his pack and gone to sit down and boom, a nice man said he could take us to Owhango. Just over 2 hours to get our first ride of the day.

We decided to stay at the spot he left us for 30min and if no one came along we would walk back to the cafe we passed and get some food. Not long and a lovely couple in a nice Ford pulled over. Jan & Barry were heading to Ohakune and said they could drop us off a bit further down the road. Extremely easy to talk to and we got along well. The 40min or so in the car went by in a flash. They even dropped us a bit off track for them to Raetihi, outside a cafe. We thanked them for the ride and let them know I blog our journey. We sat down in the Coach Cafe and we get a cheap meal $19 plenty of tasty food, the best way to describe it “like going to your local chippy & bakery turned into sit down restaurant.”

After lunch we walked down to the main road to hitch. I stuck out my thumb but the traffic was very minimal. We had two blokes opposite us building a fence. One came over to chat. I realised we were only a few metres from the holiday park and Rowan said we will go until 3.30pm and if we get no ride we will stay here. A stranger came up to us and gave us some cardboard to write up a sign (thanks Barry for that pen!). Our other sign got wet so we ditched it. After a sign was made and I had some fun being silly the man came back and had an idea on how to get us a ride. “What type of coffee do you drink?” Latte’s we responded. “I will go get you some coffee and by the time I am back you will be gone.” Well the trick didn’t work but it was extremely nice of him to buy us coffee. 4min until we give up and a nice fella named Sarne picked us up, he had been working at The Blue Duck. He had completed the Te Araroa back in 2012. Chatting all the way the Whanganui, he dropped us off in the centre of town. We made it to the pharmacy 10min before 5pm.

Rowan was happy to have his pills. We start looking for an airbnb or hotel to stay at. Unfortunately the campground is way out of town and the freedom camping areas don’t allow tents. Rowan finds a hotel for about $100. We walk into the Grand Hotel and ask what it costs for a room and he said we can go check it out first if we like and hands us a room key. We head upstairs and I open the room, first I thought no one has made the beds. Then I hear a timid voice “Hello?” Oh no there is someone in the bed, I apologise profusely and back out of the room. Feeling bad and wondering if this is a place I want to stay. Well we end up booking online as it was cheaper than at the front desk, which is strange as they pay fees for people to book with booking.com. we get up to our room and I take my boots of yay, happy feet. Rowan is coming down with whatever the Cambridge kids had and it takes us a while to make a dinner decision. We end up with a meal from Noodle Canteen that we take back to our room. Hopefully Rowan feels okay in the morning, he is asleep already.

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.