By Elliot

Distance: 25km

We woke up at the golf course thinking we had plenty of time to pack up and leave before any of the golfers showed up. How early could golfers show up on a Sunday, anyway? At 7am.

Once there were people around, it felt strange having our tent up and our gear strewn all over a picnic bench, so we hurried to get everything packed up.

There was some potential road walking today that I was hoping we could skip by hitching. Unfortunately, neither of us have much patience to wait around hoping someone will come by and stop for us. So we walked everything.

After 13 km of mostly road walking, we finally arrived at a trailhead. The trail had quite a lot of stairs and some nice trees.

While we were on trail, we got to talking to some people who were coming down the trail. We chatted for a few minutes, and it turns out that one of the people has a sister who lives really close to the trail near Wellington, so we might have found a place to stay for once we get there.

Every post we list the number of kilometres we walked on that day. It’s a fun thing to do, but doesn’t fully capture how long or hard a day was. For example, we walked the first 13km today in 3.5 hours. The remaining 12km took 6.5 hours. Our pace is dictated by how hilly and muddy the trail is. On a flat road, we can go 5km/h. On a muddy trail, we’re lucky if we can get close to 3km/h.

Tonight we are staying at a trail angel’s house. We weren’t sure what to expect, other than that the trail angel was nice, which we heard from someone we met who is now ahead of us on the trail. We get to stay in a bed tonight, instead of camping. And she made us dinner which had plenty of fresh vegetables. Overall, a lovely experience!