Day 58: Koitiata to Mt. Lee Reserve

Distance Covered: 36 km 

Well, the morning started off nice anyways. Since we are one day ahead of the US, we called family today for their Christmas. Reception was not great, but we were generally able to get a few minutes in with each person. It was the first time I had talked with any of my family since we started so it was good to check in. It was hard, though, with such little time to talk about more than sweeping generalities about how everyone was doing.

The calls put us back in start time for the day; we didn’t leave until almost 10. We started by following the trail notes out to the beach. There were trail signs so it seemed like the right way to go. But it was leading us out onto a spit that clearly ended and would force some sort of crossing at high tide. Hmm… we looked at the GPS map and it went a different route.  We wandered around trying to figure out what we should do and then opted to backtrack and follow the GPS map. We found a local trail along the main beach and bushwhacked to where we wanted to be. Curious.

On the beach, a German man named Eberhardt found us. He is in his late 60’s and walks the beach often. One conversation led to another and he asked to walk with us. The gist of the conversation was that he loved the night sky so much that he moved to New Zealand just to see the southern sky. He ended up staying 33 years! His astronomy hobby naturally meshed with my background in developing space platforms and instruments. He was thrilled that he could talk at a high level about exoplanets, JWST, and the Apollo missions. He said that those missions were streamed live even to Germany, which I had not heard before. As a side note, the black sand sparkled in the sun which gave the impression of walking on a field of stars. It was certainly a fun conversation and he walked with us further than he originally intended to. He had to turn back, but we first shook hands and thanked each other for their time.

Then Emily and I walked on until the beach exit into a managed pine forest. This was a dirt road in the shaded and pine scented woods so it was quite nice. A lunch later, we crossed a road into the same managed region, but the trees had all been logged. This left the dirt and rocks exposed with only short, fast growing shrubs. It gave me the impression that I was walking through the American southwest. Kind of nice.

But then! Just hard paved road walking for km after km into Bulls. The town of Bulls is famous for its heavy use of puns. The police are the “Consta-bulls”. The trash cans are for “Disposa-bulls”. And so on. I love that they had an idea and ran to the limit with it. We bought food from a sushi cafe that sold “Consuma-bulls”. (They charged us a 10% fee for shopping with them during the holiday season, which is also bull.)

But then! More road walking. This time 9 km through more farmland to a reserve with free camping. There was more limping involved as there always is at the end of a long day of the tar and rocks. Frustrating. The camp was nice, though, with short grass, a bathroom, and a water supply. The ducks might have been a little aggressive with roving gangs coming very close and trying to eat everything including backpacks, socks, and anything else lying around unguarded.

Tomorrow is… wait for it… more road walking! Surprise! The route is trying to get us from the coast to the center of the country 100 km away so we can traverse the Tararua range. They haven’t figured out how to do it without 90 km of it being roads, though.