22 Nov

There was heavy rain early evening and through out the night. When I woke this morning in Levin the day looked promising, I was glad of my warm bed and wifi last night.

Tararua Range was hidden in the clouds on dusk and is the same this morning. I’m so glad I was not up there through that rain.

After a hot shower and general personal clean up I headed for breakfast and a bus ticket to Waikanae. Yep 10:40 it leaves, perfect.

I read a blog of a couple walking ahead having completed 600km too. I’m guessing of a similar age and little tramping experience like me. They wrote of their perceived challenges of long days to meet the next stop. Snap! They overcame this by deciding to walk 5 – 6 hours a day. I’ll see how that goes.

Leo Wilson introduced himself, he is 82 and has lived in the Holiday Park in his van for 8 years. He cares for people’s gardens and a regular at mass. He blessed me good safety on my walk. He must have known I needed some intervention.

When the bus arrived a lady stopped to talk about teenage depression and over her shoulder I saw the bus driver waving me to hurry up, he’s running late!!!! That pressure again.

I bought a book at the Sally shop, walked to my camp for the night and set up my fly only on the lawn.

I sent extra gear on to Wellington and while in town I found these young ones. They said they had been at the river after school. Notice they each had a squirt of sauce in front of each of them.

I also ran into other TA’s Anton and Desiree.

On arriving back at camp three other TAs arrived. Hils, Tom and Stew I had also met them at different times.

We walked into town later for a burger and a beer. Walked back to camp just on sunset. It should be a nice day tomorrow.

A relaxing day walking only to and from camps. Bus from Levin to Waikanae.