By Ruth
Distance: 20 km
This morning we had breakfast with Richelle, our trail angel host. We had a delicious homemade granola, and we jokingly asked her where we could buy some, it was so good. When we were going to leave, she packed some up and gave it to us. What generosity!
After the muddy bush track of yesterday, today was basically a walk in the park. Actually, the whole day today was on a walking/cycling path along the Waikato River. It was very scenic, however it is paved the entire way, so although the walking was easy, it ended up being a bit painful on our feet.
Since we were just walking between towns our packs were light and so was the mood.
As it neared lunchtime, however, we made a mistake and decided to take a “shortcut” down Maui Street to get to a cafe for lunch. This turned out to be a super industrial and unpleasant stretch of road, made even worse by our impending hunger. We made it though okay though and then it was back onto the pleasant cycleway for the rest of the day.
There were not many other walkers on the path, but lots of cyclists, most of them on e-bikes which annoyed Elliot greatly. A few cyclists stopped to chat with us, which was very nice. Except when they told us the next nice spot for a break was “just around the corner”, well, apparently that means something different when you’re on foot!
We arrived in Hamilton in the early afternoon and are staying with a trail angel couple who hiked the TA a couple years ago. We met John outside the supermarket in Kerikeri (Day 11!) and he offered us to stay with him when we got to Hamilton. “Sounds great”, we said, but at that point we both had severe doubts that we would ever make it here. But now we’re here! It’s a bit surreal.
What’s more surreal is that when we met John in Kerikeri we also gave him our blog link (hi John & Ali!) so they could follow us along our journey. This evening, at the end of a delicious supper, Ali brought out a beautiful pavlova, because she had read that we missed out on trying it at the craft club in Opuawhanga (Day 17)! It was like the blog had come to life. A true trail angel move.
Today we passed kilometre 750, so we are officially 25% done the trail. Tomorrow is a rest day and re-gear day as the past few days have driven home the fact that my boots are kaput and I need new ones. (Elliot tried to tell me this in Auckland but I was a bit stubborn back then.) So a bit of shopping and a bit of rest are on the agenda for tomorrow.