By Ruth

Distance: 17km

At this point in the trail, we have started to meet a lot of new people. Some started before us and are doing shorter days or more rest days. Most started after us and are either the elite hikers, or have been skipping more sections than us. Yesterday we got to walk a bit with Maria, who started the trail a couple weeks before we did. She has one of the best attitudes towards the trail that we have encountered so far. After retiring, she decided to give herself the gift of walking the TA. She’s not trying to get anything out of it, other than enjoyment. She has had some challenges, and she’s not going ultralight or doing huge days, but when we asked her how she was enjoying the trail, she genuinely said she has loved every minute. It’s wonderful to meet people with such a great energy on the trail.

Today was thankfully a shorter day after yesterday’s monster of a day. We were expecting rain all day, and it dutifully started raining around 7 am. Luckily we had already taken down our tent by then! We were in no rush to head out into the rain so we lingered over a coffee with some other walkers at the general store before finally dragging ourselves onto the trail around 9.

The first obstacle of the day was crossing a paddock of very curious bulls. As soon as we were over the stile, they started coming towards us. Our barely suppressed panic only mounted as we walked and we could hear them right behind us, following us across the field. When we reached the stile on the other side I nearly jumped over it.

The rest of the walk was pleasant, up and down through farm land and some cool forest with really tall trees.

After lunch some heavy clouds rolled in and it started raining in earnest, so everything became a bit less pleasant. With all the long grasses we were walking through, it was soaking wet feet for the both of us by the end of the day.

The last bit of the walk was through a park where they had both sheep and frisbee golf! A very kiwi combination.

Tonight we were going to camp at a basic campsite a few kilometres beyond the town of Te Kuiti, but with the rain we changed our plans and are happily ensconced in a dry motel in town for the night.