Day 43 - new shoes

It had bucketed it down over night and the forecast was the same for most of today. As the next section was heading towards Tongariro National Park where we’d be heading into the mountains, neither Steph nor I were keen to head there in the rain so we decided to take a zero and hang out in Taumarunui for the day.

I spent the morning doing a few jobs in town and amongst the random selection of Taumarunui shops discovered the most delicious little bakery, Buy The Gram.

After devouring an incredible brie and cranberry bagel, I took advantage of a small break in the rain and headed through the high street, down the back country road towards Taumarunui Canoe Hire - the company who I’d be paddling down the Whanganui River with in a week’s time. I had ordered some new shoes to be delivered there, and couldn’t contain my excitement enough to wait until I’d be walking past tomorrow to pick them up. I was 2km in to the 4km walk when it started peeing it down again, so I stuck my thumb out and hitched a ride.

I turned up at the canoe base as a bus load of people were emptying barrels, they looked soaked to the core. Turns out with the amount of rain they’d had over night and today, the river levels had risen so much they’d had to pull people off the river early for safety. There was a bunch of about 10 TA hikers up near the office playing cards - they were staying there whilst they waited to start the river, which was supposed to be today but wasn’t going to happen until the river was safe again. I wasn’t starting the river for another five days so I hoped it would be fine by then!

I picked up my parcel and managed to hitch a ride back to the motel, I was beyond excited for new shoes!

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around attempting to break them in before settling in front of a movie for the night praying the rain would have stopped by tomorrow.