Day 69: Outside Palmerston North to Burttons Track (1492-1514)

Monday, February 6

I slept really well! Today was Waitangi Day, the day the treaty between the British and the Maori was signed. We all gradually woke up, ate breakfast and packed. We were talking with John about what we planned to hike today and he offered to give us a ride to the start of the Back Track. It would be all road walking for us to get there so we gladly took him up on the offer. A lady named Kate and her daughter Emily live in a section of John's house. Emily really wanted to join us on our hike, so she drove with John to drop us off.

We said goodbye to Susan, Kate, Vivia and Lucy and piled in John's passenger van with our packs. After saying goodbye to John and Emily we hit the trail. It was great to be back on a trail and to top it off, it was a mounting biking trail. Those are usually the best maintained trails. We only had 1.5 kilometers to walk until we reached the 1500 kilometer mark. The halfway point! Eventually we made it to the halfway point and before we knew it we were off the bush trail and on a gravel road. A couple drove by and talked to some people in the front of our group. They had helped create the trail! Shortly after we stopped for a snack and lunch break and saw a hiker coming toward us. He said the trail was muddy to the river.

We walked a little further up the gravel road and the trail went into the bush. The mud started, but it was a fun amount of mud.

After crossing a few rivers and taking a few breaks, I was behind Sara and Creya and ahead of Marjolein, Erinn and Trevor. We got to a river crossing that entailed a little bit of walking upstream. It wasn't too deep or difficult, but I didn't want Erinn, Trevor and Marjolein to miss the fact that you had to walk a bit up river. I had only left them about 15 minutes earlier so I figured they'd catch us any minute. I stood in the river and watched Creya until she got to Sara and then went back on the trail to wait for the others. We waited for an hour and there was still no sign of them. I walked a little ways back but didn't want to walk back through the mud. There weren't any river crossings or bad sections of trail in the little time we'd been separated so I figured they were fine. They like to take breaks. But it was a little weird they were taking so long.

I walked over to Creya and Sara and we waited a little longer. After standing around in and near a river for over an hour we were getting pretty cold. And it was almost 5 so we'd need to leave soon to get to a decent campsite. Sara went back to find them. They had stopped for a break even though we had just stopped a few kilometers ago. She told them about how they needed to walk upriver and the three of us continued on our way.

We stopped where we had all planned to camp and set up our tents. Erinn, Trevor and Marjolein never showed up but we figured they may have camped where they took their break. The three of us made our dinners and went to bed to light rain and wind.