Te Araroa (day 23) - Taumarunui to Mangatepopo River Crossing / mile 681

"I am not the type who wants to go to the land - I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel. This state of affairs is at least partially due to the fact that nature and I have so little in common. We don't go to the same restaurants, laugh at the same jokes or, most significant, see the same people" Fran Lebowitz 

Trail went to the backcountry today as it so often does while hiking. I packed up before 6am, tent was surprisingly dry which was great as the backpack loaded with food was already heavy. Gravel roads was the name of the game, I got one very short but hilarious hitchhike right in the morning with Trish, a relief driver for NZ Post. She packed me at the back of her van after rearranging all the packages she was delivering. We had a brief conversation about efficiency of the post in New Zealand and I was back on the road.

Soon after, I walked next to the farm were someone was keeping a single ostrich on a cows field, it started to follow me along the fence for good two hundred metres. I was so surprised that I even recorded it, when I stopped before the end of the farm, ostrich went down on it's knees, started flapping wings and swinging it's head side to side, it was hilarious. I think it was performing some kind of mating dance, unfortunately I had to politely reject it's advances.

Then I went through the village of Owhango before entering 42nd Traverse, which was a fancy name for more roadwalking. Here I met an American couple I've seen yesterday in New World: Lauren and John and an older Kiwi lady Pam and I joined them for a couple of miles. We talked about nature, work, studies and how the lack of scavengers and predators in NZ quite often makes the trail smell of rotting corpses. Pam showed us a plant called "Cabbage Tree" which was currently in bloom and explained that most of pretty flowers are invasive newcomers from overseas, native plants usually had white small flowers.

During particularly steep and muddy section of the bypass, I left my company behind amd carried on my own. There was few small river crossings along the way building up to a serious one on the river Mangatepopo. I got there around 5pm, crossed it fairly quickly with water going just above my knees but it turned out I came out in the wrong place so I had to go back into the cold water and find a correct exit, it took another fifteen minutes. I followed the river upstream, crossed it through a strong current section and finally managed to spot a trail marker on the other side.

That was my final effort for the day, luckily campsite was just by the river. I pitched the tent, and went inside the sleeping bag to get some feeling back in my cold feet. After half an hour Lauren, John and Pam arrived. Everyone was tired but excited after finishing this hard section. I stayed in the tent listening to the sounds of their conversation until around 8pm when everyone went to bed.

At night rats were scouting the campsite, few were checking out my tent, I discouraged them by whacking the ground and making noises. At 3am I checked my backpack but luckily nothing got damaged. The night was cold so I put the hood of my sleeping bag on and went back to sleep.