Day 56 - black sand

Durie Hill —-> Koitata 31km

The next four days until Palmerston North were a section I knew a lot of hikers skipped. Four days comprised of a lot of roads, roads and more roads.

I actually haven’t minded the roads to date. They’ve given me a chance to listen to some podcasts and really helped get my fitness ready for the mountains!

I left Durie Hill thanking Vanessa and Ian for a completely uninterrupted sleep and set out on the road in good spirits.

Firstly a pretty bog standard road.

Then a lovely grassy verge by the side of the road.

Then an actual highway.

Then a quiet country road.

It was scorching by this point. Not wanting to sit down in the middle of the road I kept walking long past my stomach starting screaming in order to find shade from the sun. A lone farm house with a wonderfully high hedge did just the trick.

Then it was back on the road. Now with cows.

And finally through some gates and down a gravel farm road.

There were more cows along this track, and having just met a whole heap of cows not an hour earlier I felt very confident in shooing them out of my way. But when they all then started following me down the road, my confidence plummeted and I legged it to the next gate. I realised when I was a km further on that I’d dropped my airpod… My phone told me it was in the field with the cows and my brain told me it would rather pay $125 for a new AirPod than go back in there to look for it.

I continued on and started to feel the ground soften underneath me - the gravel gave way for sand as I finally reached the west coast for the first time since leaving 90 mile beach. This coast couldn’t have been more different. It was black for a start, and covered with driftwood. It was just me and the seagulls for an hour, there want anybody else around.

My camp for the night was in a teeny seaside village called Koitiata, separated from the beach by an estuary. It was more a pool of mud and sludge than a water crossing and it took all my effort not to sink right in. The markers for the crossing seemed to be in the most ridiculous of places and I had to trudge along the muddy bank before I could find any sort of passage into the village.

After the frantic sounds of the ocean, it felt wonderfully calm in the village, the campsite was nestled into a corner next to a kids playground. I washed the mud off my legs and started to put up my tent when the pole snapped AGAIN. This time in a much more annoying place that couldn’t be fixed with the repair tube.

Trying to remain calm, I spent an hour trying to glue it back together, before giving up and strapping it together with ducttape kindly donated by my neighbours at the campsite. They clearly saw I was having an internal meltdown as shortly after they brought me a glass of Prosecco!

The tent somehow managed to stay up and although it wasn’t perfect, I was confident it would be okay for the next few nights until I got to Palmerston North, I’d be able to get a new pole there.

I watched the sun go down eating noodles, drinking Prosecco and feeling very grateful I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere.