Start – National Park
Finish – Taumarunui (Canoe Hire Company)
Daily Distance – 0 km
TA Distance – 1075 km
A day of waiting around today. The bus back to Taumarunui wasn’t until 13:20, so the morning was spent
kicking my heels at the backpackers. Frustrating, but I appreciate that they allowed me to hang around
after my checkout time and gave me a lift into town, thus saving me an hour’s walk.
The expected bus arrived 30 minutes late, which I have come to think of as Kiwi standard time. The
canoe company was due to pick us up 1.5 hours after arriving back in town. This made the run to the
supermarket and repacking of 7 days worth of food somewhat rushed, but achieved with 20 minutes to
spare. Fortunately, the canoe company were working on Kiwi daylight savings time, so were 1.5 hours
late. My heels are feeling rather hard done by after all their kicking today. Still, we are now camped at the
canoe HQ and have received barrels to pack all of our things in. After spending the trip so far refining my
bag packing to an art form, it was quite the head scratcher translating that into small barrels. Having
packed as compactly as possible I am left thinking, I may need a bigger boat…
