Te Araroa (day 4) - Ahipara to Saddle Road Campground / mile 85

"To me the outdoors is what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment into a taxicab" Fran Lebowitz

My day started early with a hitchhike from Ahipara to Kaitaia, nice Maori gentleman I forgot the name of, was going to work on the other side of the coast (it only takes half and hour to get there) we talked about how the coastline is slowly being taken by the sea, at a rate of about half a metre per year and how he also went across the Western coast of USA but by car and really enjoyed it.
He dropped me off by Pak'nSave second of the large supermarkets in New Zealand and the cheapest one. I resupplied for another 3 days, probably a bit too much but I couldn't say no to 1$ snickers! So I got 10 of them! I also had a filthy Maccas (it's what Kiwis call McDonalds), it wasnt as good as European ones, especially the fries were lackluster (says McD connoisseur, haha).
After that I was trying to catch another hitchhike out of town as it looked like it will be few more miles of road walking but no one stopped and I had a feeling that it will take a long time for someone to stop, so I decided to walk. It turned out that the remainder of the day was walking on an asphalt and then gravel road. I stopped quite early but strategically at the campsite just before a dreaded mud covered section of the rain forest, from the comments on Far Out I gathered that I should have the whole day to tackle it.
I have spent spare time time reading hilarious book by Fran Lebowitz called "Reader", took a cold shower and properly dried all of my clothes and equipment, ah I also took first poop on the trail, splendid!

Around 7pm two more hikers arrived at the campsite, thank God I thought that no one else was hiking North Island! American girl called Didi (trail name Thirteen) and New Zealander Tobyn from Christchurch. Didi got to chat with one of the locals by the campsite and got us a beer each, first trail magic of TA! We had a chat about the trail so far and what are their plans for tomorrow. Suddenly it got quite cold, everyone put their puffy on, sun went down and we decided to call it a day. 

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