Start – Bennett road campground (timber trail exit)
Finish – Taumarunui
Daily Distance – 26km
TA Distance – 1075 km
After today, I have a new appreciation for the trials that camels endure. Stopping by the supermarket on
my way into town, I was cheerily informed by the lady on the checkout that today was a beautiful 32°c
and that it must be a lovely day for a stroll. As she was clearly unaware that I was standing in a growing
pool of sweat and heat-born intolerance, there was nothing for it but to beat a hasty retreat. In common
with most kiwis, she really seemed to mean well, but as a country they fail to grasp that for a pasty faced
Englishman, 32°c seems like the same approximate temperature as the sun when asked to perform any
sort of motion beyond reaching for a tall glass of Pimms. It may be clear from the slight crack in my
customarily stoic demeanor that today was a tough day. Not so much for the legs, but when your only
companions for hours of tarmac walking are the chirruping of circadas, the sun beating down and the road
tar growing tacky, progress can seem interminably slow.
Taumarunui however, unlike the walk to reach it, is great. I was fortunate to run into fellow TA hikers
Mark and Austin on my amble through town who had a pickup scheduled to take them back to the
holiday park 3km outside of town. Having planned to stay there too, I was more than glad to grab a seat
and save myself more walking. The prospect was especially appealing as the holiday park has a river
running right next to the park, which is popular for swimming with locals, campers and now me. It’s a
strange river, where the distant half has a strong downstream flow, but the near half is almost totally
benign. This naturally leads to the game of swimming upstream on the calm side, entering the flowing
side and bobbing happily downstream, before rejoining the calm side and repeating the process. After a
long, hot day some childish fun was a truly great way to recover. The recovery effort has also been aided
greatly by the addition of birthday wine, courtesy of Chris, Craig and Adriana. Possibly aided slightly too
much, but with most people going their separate ways tomorrow it’s nice to celebrate the moment.
The next several weeks take an unusual degree of forward planning, both on food resupply and booking
accommodation/boat hire. Everybody chooses to tackle this differently depending on their feelings about
such things as road walking and how long they want to spend on the Whanganui river section of the route,
hence the group fragmentation. I haven’t yet decided on my plan as for health and safety reasons I need to
find at least one other person who wants to do the same Whanganui itinerary as me and on the same
dates. This may mean a degree of backtracking after the river section to fill in parts I’ve missed. There are
also a lot of other potential permutations, but working through those is a job for a more sober me on the
morrow. Goodnight!
