Legs and Borders

"Possums, rats, rabbits pigs and goats are all considered pests in New Zealand. I get 10$ per possum, can catch 40 per day, gives me 2000$ a week" Steve, pest control guy Tuesday, 28th of November 2023 Day of hitchhikes around the trail closures and river crossings. I woke up early and left Dave's and Alex place while they were still sleeping. I've walked back to the beach and then up through Helena Ridge, beautiful but overgrown forest section. At about 11am I came out to the gravel road where a cyclist looking like Santa informed me that I will have to take 20 kilometres long detour around the closed section of the trail. The land owners here didn't want TA hikers to walk through their land and denied access - it was part of 'Kauri dieback' disease dispute, causing one of New Zealand's most iconic trees to decay, I encountered measures to stop it before, like disinfecting and brushing shoes along certain sections of the trail. ...

"Those damn gypsies selling drugs on the side of the road, but at least we know where they are" Mike (or Tim) "The ones that don't do what they are told, that's the good guys" Dave Long, productive day on the road, Kerouac would be proud. I started walking from Paihaia just after sunrise, got 6$ latte at mobile "Coffee 2 Go" parked on the side of the road, it was delicious. Then I've walked all the way up to Opua which took me about an hour and caught 2$ ferry to Okiato. The driver was quite talkative and explained to me few queries I had about the trail ahead. After ferry crossing which took 15 minutes, I kept on walking until I reached the intersection. Here I decided to hitch quite dangerous, windy section of it, managed to get a quick hitchhike with Mike and his dog Tim (or Tim and his dog Mike, I got it completely mixed up). He was a local farmer who apparently picked up hundreds of TA hikers...