Day 27 | Hampton Downs
9 November 2022 | 22°C
Despite camping very close to the highway, I sleep very well with my earplugs. Just been awake once happily realizing that my phone is charging again. Water got into the connector during the rain and iPhone kept telling me all afternoon yesterday that charging is suspended until dried out again.
I have an early start today at 6:45 in order to get some miles in before the rain kicks in again. Once I get to Pokeno, the next little village, I walk through some residential area and a nice walkway along a little creek until I get to the café for breakfast. I enjoy a real good flat white together with a smashed apple danish danish I got from the supermarket yesterday. Yum! Once I start walking again, it’s only 10 AM. Still a full day ahead and already 8 km done. Love it!
I take a bad decision then though. I see a big detour of around 7 km on the map and wonder if there isn’t any shorter option. Quickly googling I find a pathway that is only 2 1/2 hours instead of 3 1/2. Sweet. After walking on a semi-busy road and a very quiet gravel road road for roughly 1 1/2 hours I see a sign “private property”. Still hoping that I will only walk through farmland I move on.
Backtracking does not seem to be an option now. After another half hour a house comes into sight and four angry dogs start barking at me. I don’t really wanna mess with them and finally decide to turn around. A few minutes later a lady on a small buggy comes driving along. I apologize for walking in their property. She’s very friendly and says that occasionally people on bikes or cars find this route on google. She offers me to take me back to the main road. I don’t dare asking if she could just drive me further along to the other side of her property.
Once back in the main road I hitch to back to Pokeno and from there to Mercer; something I should have done in the first place. The whole “experiment” cost 3 hrs. Oh well!
Happy though that it hasn’t rained I cruise along.
Rain kicks in around 3pm but legs feel strong and I continue walking until 6pm. The area close to the river is covered with wet grass … not a good campground. Looking out for some trees, I find a good campsite by a small forest up a hill a little bit off trail.
Learning of the day: Never trust people in cars when they tell you sth about distances (a police officer asking me where I would walk to today indicated that it was 10km to Rangiriri … it was 20km along the tail in the end .. not the first time this happened … )