Before long he was off, refusing to say "goodbye" as apparently it's one thing he's learned on the trails: that you never know where or when you'll bump into people again. Fair enough. I wished him good walk. Taylor and I both agreed later that he was an interesting guy that we both would have liked to get to know better, but were unlikely to get the opportunity to do so. He clearly is the sort that, as they say 'waltzes to their own tune', living his life as he sees fit, passing through the lives of others, but not being dictated by them. I could be wrong, he could be a completely different type of person off-trail (apparently that's not uncommon), but that's the impression I came away with. He seemed completely his own person and for that you can't help but admire him. I hope to be like that myself one day, and I think doing this trail is definitely helping.
While Cloudwalker may be up and off, Taylor and I were rather more tardy at getting ready to set out for the day ( I don't think either of us morning people. I'm certainly not!). This was something I soon regretted as the sound of a quadbike engine grew louder from along the road and soon the farmer, who's small river-side paddock we were fairly sure we were camped in, came into view. Taylor wasn't yet out of his tent, but I was and nit kniwing what else to do I froze. The farmer stopped to open a gate nearby, drove across the bridge and off into a paddock on the far side. I began packing up in earnest and froze again when a few minutes later he returned. If he saw us he gave no sign, and drove off back the way he had come.
I felt slightly guilty, and more than a little afraid that as we headed off down the road we'd get confronted for trespassing. From marks on the ground it was clear other people had camped here before and so, all due credit to the farmer, I'm sure he must be aware of it. Maybe he's willing to turn a blind eye? Certainly if a farm house had been in sight when we stopped for the night I'd have gone and asked permission to camp first, but we hadn't a clue how far down the road the nearest house might be at the time.
In contrast to me, Taylor was completely unphased. His long term passion in life has been skating, a pursuit that is apparently not very popular with local Californian and other state authorities where Taylor grew up (he commented that he was envious of all the skate parks, even in small NZ towns, for people to skate in without being asked to 'move along'). Consequently he has a long history of being asked to move along from places and it no longer bothers him. I'm almost envious. By contrast I have this innate (and borderline irrational) fear of being told off that has endured from my days as the goody-two-shoes at school, so my fear of encountering an angry farmer did not dissipate until we were well down the road and had turned onto the next one, and were consequently miles from the farm we had set out from that morning.
As you will have gathered, today involved a lot of road walking and in fact was a road walk in its entirety. First there was the gravel road leading out from the Mangaokewa River, then the gravel road leading east toward the highway. This road eventually becomes asphalt, meets the highway, which we then follow for a way before turning off on the final gravel road of the day. We stopped four times: once to get water (I was very happy to toss the river water I was carrying and fill up from the presumably cleaner trickle we encountered splashing down a bushy cliff), once for a rest stop (seated on a pile of timber left by a farm gate), once for lunch (by another farm gate, where Taylor took the opportunity to put up his tent to dry; I was cold and tired by that stage and couldn't be bothered to do more than eat and dry my feet) and once to take advantage of a seat in a corrugated iron bus shelter. I scoffed some chocolate while sitting with my boot-free feet resting up on the timber frame of the shelter, trying to keep my socks out of the cobwebs. The terrain was mostly easy all day, being a long slow, undulating climb through rolling, lush green country side. Sheep fled, steers flocked, and there's always the odd bull that decides you're worthy of a bellow.
Setting off along the highway once more Taylor went on ahead. He has a quicker pace than me even when I'm not tired with sore feet (Alyse, I now know what it's like trying to keep up with someone who has longer legs than you and promise never to laugh at you again!). As road walks go it wasn't bad, but the highway shoulder is narrow in places and I had one scary moment when, seeing that a large incoming truck had pulled out to give Taylor a wide berth I decided not to traverse down the steep bank to get further off the road. Unfortunately unheard traffic behind me forced the truck back into its lane as it drew level with me, causing it to whip past rather too close for comfort. I resolved to always jump (carefully!) down the bank in future when faced with a large truck.
I caught up with Taylor waiting for me at the intersection with a gravel road. It was lucky he waited, as when we set off he had every intention of following the highway further, whilst I was fairly certain the gravel road was the trail. We consulted maps and GPS and sure enough the gravel road was our route (there is a small orange marker on the larger sign, but it points down the highway and so is a little confusing). Taylor graciously said if I hadn't been there he'd have wandered off down the highway for miles and had to back track (which apparently he's had to do a couple of times), so I felt that I had at least justified my presence a little, even if it had slowed him up a bit all day. In return, I don't think I'd have made it all the way without someone pushing the pace for me all day.
We set off down the road, stopping only for Taylor to extract his camera from his pack and take a photo. For someone who does professional photography he takes surprisingly few photographs, possibly because he doesn't have his usual kit with him (too heavy!) and is reduced to what to him must be equivalent to a point-and-shoot. I'm definitely guilty of not taking as many photos as I should and I know I'll regret it when it comes to reliving my trip when I get home.
At the end of the road we came to the Pureora Reserve and the start of the next section of walking track. Here there's a carpark and flush loos, and a old building with a rusty tap and sign saying "water supply". I stopped to make use of the facilities (another of my adopted rules of thru-hiking, in addition to 'never pass up a proper seat', is: 'never pass up a flush loo'--they usually come with toilet paper!). Taylor continued 500m up the road to the Ngaherenga Campsite, but soon returned, put off by the number of people and $6 fee. Personally I couldn't see why overnighters who pay for the privilege only get a compost loo, when here at the carpark for day-users they get free access to flush toilets, fresh water and picnic tables to boot. Also, being on the brink of exhaustion, I wasn't inclined to walk any further than I had to. Consequently I was willing to join Taylor in rebellion and we stealth-camped behind a large, apparently disused building next to the carpark.
Though overcast, my tent was happily able to dry a little while we had dinner at the picnic table nearby. The water from the "water supply" tasted quite rusty and I wondered how long it had been since anyone had turned that tap on. We opted for the water from the sink in the bathroom after that, though still treated it just in case.
Dinner was the first time I've actually seen Taylor eat. It turns out he has a mountain of trail mix, 2/3 of an enormous block of cheese, half a loaf of Molenberg, 1 1/2 small jars of peanut butter and some tea...and that's it! (He was supposed to have a bag of oatmeal as well but forgot to buy some in Te Kuiti; I offered him an oats singles sachet as I have loads, but he wouldn't take it). So he's out here thru-hiking with nothing but the same things to eat for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner...hard core. Personally I'd be bored to death (and probably hate life after three or four days) if that was what I had to live on out here. By comparison I've indulged in three different flavours of porridge sachets for breakfasts, the choice of varying amounts of cheese, salami, capsicum and/or different flavoured tuna sachets in tortilla wraps for lunch, and three or four different flavours of pasta snack to choose from for dinner; it's not a Michelin star menu but at least there's some variety! But Taylor doesn't seem phased, though I think he is a little concerned that he may not have enough food to get to Taumarunui, the next town en route, some 80km away. Apparently he's run out of food before, on a hike over Mount Whitney, so I guess he knows the drill. I always carry a bit extra and don't mind sharing, but Taylor doesn't strike me as the type that will accept more than a cookie or two. There seems to be a bit of an unspoken code among hikers that you are supposed to at least provide yourself with all the basic necessities (though other hikers will generally always help each other out in a jam). If people offer it's okay to accept, but certainly one never asks for food, or at least doesn't seem to (apparently called "yogeying" in the States, I saw this in action at Juno Hall when Adam, a British backpacker but not a hiker, went straight up to people he'd never even spoken to before and asked if he could have some of their food. It was so brazen the people in question didn't really know what to say and so Adam scored a bread roll and Nutella for breakfast!). I've previously accepted breakfast from Symi and Janosch, and initially was concerned about paying them back in kind at some point, but the reality is I may never bump into them again so all I can do is 'pay it forward' (like sharing dinner with Sam the other day).
After dinner Taylor and I hit the hay. No other hikers had come past and there was only the odd car still driving past on the road. I had restless legs again but I've been taking Ibuprofen a lot of nights recently so tried to get by tonight with some stretching and exercises--quite difficult to do in my tiny tent! And unfortunately, they didn't really work.
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