31 Oct. Te Araroa 30
Leaving Auckland behind with last minute Shopping to last us for the next 5days .
First time using the alarm o’clock this morning set at 5am, good thing as it turned out as, as we were leaving the closed camp ground, the workers were turning up at 6:30 to start the earth works to redevelop the camp ground to housing development. Probably wouldn’t have been a problem but we were happy to exit without explaining ourselves. Next problem was getting a top up of for fuel for the cooker, normally no problem but the garage attended wouldn’t allow us to pour directly into the fuel container, but fortunately he gave us an alternation, pour into a fuel container he gave us then I pour into my container. All this for 70 cents of fuel (petrol )
Spent a couple of hours at McDonald’s updating our blogs then hit the road, Road walking isn’t exiting, i must confess and after 9km of walk in I put out my thumb and soon we got a lift to Clevedon village which saved use walking 13km. Good thing really as we passed a couple of stone quarry where trucks were travelling to and from. Not much room for pedestrians on the road and to walk comfortably we would need one leg longer than the other due to the shoulder of the road.
Rain, hail and thunder hit us, it was slow at first where we had another 3km to get to our planed campsite. It got harder with the rain coming down making progress muddy and slippery. We came across a clearing adjacent to the river and without to much discussion, we camped for the night. just in front of us were another couple from France doing the TA, they walked the same ground looking for a good spot to camp but the ground was water logged. we looked and found and spot that was a little higher and dry.
It was early, and while we were sheltered in our tent we sore two horses travel down the same path as we travel, later in the day Eunhwa had mentioned how much damage these do to the track.
