Day 58 - tarmac

Bulls —-> Feilding holiday park 24km

Cyclone Gabrielle was now just a few days away from hitting mainland NZ - not that you could tell, it was still scorching outside. I was far enough south that luckily I would avoid the worst of the weather but I was planning on taking a zero in Palmerston North so I could be indoors when the bad weather came in, plus I had a fair number of jobs I needed to do in Palmie - fixing my tent being the priority.

With only 20km to walk to reach the centre of Feilding (I actually can’t believe I’m writing “only”, but that’s how I work now), I had a leisurely morning and said goodbye to the final bull related paraphernalia on the outskirts of town.

I walked down more country roads, the most exciting thing was seeing these sheep run.

I was in Feilding by 1pm, and with nothing much else to do except walk the remaining 4km to the campsite, which was annoyingly off the trail, I hung out in a cafe for a few hours and treated myself to a choccie milkshake and some waffles.

Feilding holiday park had done an incredible online branding job, making their campsite seem very hip and welcoming, when in reality it was mostly a camp for permanent campers and derelict vans on the edge of suburbia. I crawled into my tent mid afternoon, feeling a bit out of place, but mostly very sick from the choccie milkshake, and didn’t emerge until the morning.