Day 71: Levin 0 Day

Wednesday, February 8

We all slept in (for TA hikers) and after eating breakfast we went into town. Creya had lost a trekking pole so we wanted to see if we could find one in town. Sara has been waiting for a package with warmer clothes and supplies for awhile, so we were thinking about taking a bus to Palmerston North to get it, but the package still wasn't there. We went to the supermarket and got muffins and scones for Dave, Dennis and Fiona. We knew where they worked so we could take them to them.

We stopped to see Dennis first. We weren't sure if funeral homes had normal hours, so if we couldn't find him we'd give his treats to Dave. Dennis was there and he introduced us to his wife and son and gave us his phone number if we needed anything. He reiterated he thought we could do the Tararuas, but our friends had told us they were difficult and road walking seemed much safer to me. We said goodbye and walked across the street to see Dave.

When we walked in, the guy behind the counter guessed who we were right away and got Dennis. The search and rescue is run by volunteers, so when Dave (or anyone) goes out looking for people, they leave their jobs for however long it takes. 

Dave came out and we said thank you again and gave him the muffins and scones before heading to see Fiona. He reiterated, like Dennis, that we could hike the ranges but I still wasn't sure they sounded like a good idea. We walked to the police station and asked for Fiona. She came out and was so happy to see the treats. She'd been wanting some. We talked with her for a bit and found out her kids had done an amazing job with dinner. We showed her our trail maps that were on our phones and she counted out how many days it would take us to get through the ranges (4-5) and we really doubted we'd get a 4 or 5 day window of good weather.

We went to The grocery store to get taco supplies for dinner and then we went to McDonalds. Sadly they didn't have coffee because there was a boil warning for the water due to all the heavy rain.

After some good McDonalds treats we went back to the holiday park and asked the owner about the Aquatic Center. He and his wife were so nice to us the two nights we were there!

My phone charging chord stopped working so we went back to town so I could buy a new one and Sara could get safety pins before going to the aquatic center. After buying my chord, I got a message from Julia about the Tararuas saying they had made it to Waikanae. I messaged her back and told her we were thinking of road walking there tomorrow and might catch her and Puff Puff in Wellington! That definitely helped us all make our decision to road walk.

Then it was off for the aquatic center. This one had a warm pool, a hot therapy pool and a water slide! It was great. The slide was dark so we couldn't tell which way it would go and they let the three of us go down together, making it even more fun.

After our pool adventure we went back to the holiday park and made dinner before we started repacking our dry gear for our road walk to Waikanae tomorrow.

Levin