Day 39 - spot the orange triangle

Waitomo —> Te Kuiti 14km

Despite the mountain of food I’d eaten at the pub the night before, I woke up ravenous. I’m in a constant battle between wanting to consume as many calories as possible whilst not carrying the weight on my back. I’ve not quite got my daily food routine right yet. With only 14km to do today, I had a very relaxing morning and treated myself to a full English in an attempt to stave off the hunger for a few more hours.

I was in the fields by 10.30am and didn’t leave all day. Early on I entered a bull farm which made me poop my pants a little bit, but luckily, all bulls were safely behind fences out of the paddocks I walking through.

I spent most of the day climbing into fields, looking around for an orange triangle (so I knew which direction to head), not seeing an orange triangle so wandering around for a bit in all directions until an orange triangle came into view. Then, repeating this process when I climbed into the next field.

Passing between the different farms, I noticed when one landowner changed to another; either by the state of their tracks or by how they’d chosen to mark the trail.

The farmer who put his orange triangles on white circles was a firm favourite for quick spotting from afar.

The farmer who put orange triangles at the top of 45 degree hills was definitely not a favourite.

The farmer who put his orange triangles on the other side of his vegetable crop so there was no obvious way to get to the trail without walking through his crop was just perplexing.

After 5 hours and almost double the time I thought this section would take me, the town of Te Kuiti came into view beneath me. I dashed down the hill, through an abandoned disc golf park and onto the main street to meet Sue, the wonderful trail angel, I’d be spending the night at her house.

I spent the evening chatting with Sue, finalising plans for the next section, making several trips to New World (apparently I look under 18 so was refused alcohol without my passport…) and jumping out of my skin every time I walked onto Sue’s deck…