Day 47 - hitching
Tongariro holiday park —-> Taumarunui canoe hire. 68km hitch + 4km bus.
All I really had to do today was hitch back to Taumarunui by 2.30pm. From there, I would do my food shop for the river and jump on the 3.30 shuttle bus to the canoe hire company down by the river.
After a nice lie in and a long morning shower, I was down by the road at 10am. It was peeing it down so I wasn’t hopeful of getting a ride anytime soon. No tourists would be coming along this road in this weather.
But less than five minutes later, a car stopped and I hopped in - a local man was on his way to get his lawnmower fixed. He told me he normally drives tour buses into the park, taking walkers to the start of the crossing. He’d been stood down today as the weather was too bad for any normal person to head up the mountain. He dropped me in National Park where thankfully it wasn’t raining and I waved goodbye. A second hitch wasn’t quite as easy. 30 minutes passed with only a handful of cars even driving by. I should have left earlier to be around at hotel check out time… Eventually a car pulled in and a lovely couple heading up to Hamilton gave me a ride, dropping me right outside the bagel shop in Taumarunui - well I knew what I was going to have for lunch!
It was only 11.15am so I hung out in a coffee shop for an hour until Steph rocked up too - she’d hitched that morning from Whakapapa after a few days exploring parts of Tongariro park she’d not been to before. We grabbed lunch and headed to the park to waste a few hours until we needed to do our shopping and get the bus.
At 4pm we pulled into Taumarunui canoe hire and met the group of people we’d be paddling down the river with the next day. A few I already knew - Katherine & Marley plus Michael from New Orleans who I’d first met in Waitomo and had bumped into a couple of times since. Then some new faces: Sandy & Luca from Alaska, Ollie from Switzerland, Peter from Germany and Yuki from Japan. There were three others: Wyatt & Austin + Jess, they’d walked to Whakahoro and we’d be meeting tomorrow at the river launch point.
The canoe company were breeding poodle puppies and had seven incredible adorable magical little balls of fluff running riot around the office. I spent a good hour just rolling around the floor smothering the teeny woofers.
We all spent the evening chatting and cooking dinner in the shed - it was great to finally hear tales from other TA hikers. Turns out most of the group had only started a couple of days before Steph and I, but through some big days and a few skips here and there, they’d gotten about a week ahead of us. They’d been in Taumarunui for 6 days already… waiting out the weather and for the river levels to go down.
As nighttime came, the ever so familiar sound of rain started to hit the shed tin roof. Saying goodnight, I dashed across to the tent and crawled into my sleeping bag. I crossed everything I could hoping it was just a light shower and we’d still be able to get our canoes out on the river tomorrow.
