Diary - Km 507
The roads.
Right, ok, where did I stop? The beach, the mud, the river. The roads! Then there were the roads. Before I came to do this trail I knew I will take less of a purist approach to walking “every single mile”. I knew there would be some roads. I didn’t realize just HOW MANY. It’s a lot of roads. Usually I don’t mind them, but these guys are windy and have no shoulders for people like me to walk on. Every car has to go a little around me and that just makes me feel like an inconvenience. I don’t like feeling like an inconvenience. So around km 300ish I have decided “quality vs quantity” and met a lot of lovely locals willing to give me rides. I will spend that extra time doing side trips with no roads.
I think North Island is about people more than the nature anyway. The nature is great, sure, but I have met and stayed with so many generous, interesting, welcoming humans, that they deserve a first place here. People who drove me around town to sightsee places and eat ice cream. Those who played music, those who made breakfast or dinner or baked muffins! Those who drove out of their way in an opposite direction just so I didn’t have to walk the road in the rain. Wow. My heart is forever grateful.
On other news- I have managed to hitch a boat (!), walked probably every single type of mud (consistency ranging from a very thin mud puddle, to soup, stew, and finally a clay pot), got almost everything I own soaked in rain, petted a lot of pets and in the next couple of days will probably be in Auckland.
