• Te Araroa Day 52
• Ongarue to Taumarunui – 27.24 km in 6 hours 15 minutes
• Today’s legend: the kind vet!
• Te Araroa ice cream count: 13

It wasn’t a bad sleep on the shelter floor. Paul the bike hire guy was back in the car park at 6:40 am for what was looking like a busy weekend. The quiet road I started down had no traffic other than cars with bikes as the late comers hurried. Paul had said yesterday that some weekends in January are already completely booked out for them. I was a little envious of those starting their ride today as the weather seemed to be fining up, and because it was so cool I kind of wished I could do it all over again.

I passed the tiny township of Ongarue (population about 20 apparently) and turned onto an empty gravel road where the cycle tour obviously went too. Early on there were no houses, the odd driveway, but some paddocks with cattle. I vaguely wondered if today would be the day I encountered a cow on the road – it was that kind of deserted place. The state highway was much busier on the other side of the river and it was awesome to not have to be on that!

I mostly spent quite a lot of time thinking about my menu for the next few days, as this was a short stint where I would need to buy food from the supermarket and eat it until I got to Tongariro Holiday Park. How exciting! What could I get from New World Taumarunui? I ran through various possibilities in my head.

After probably a good hour thinking about food I started an audio book, discovering that playing it out loud in my pocket means I can still hear vehicles. I’d never do this if there were other people around, but it seemed like a good solution here. It warmed up a bit, but then at times the wind was chilly so my fleece went on and off. I was making good time though, in an effort to maximize motel time this afternoon by planning to arrive just after check in time.

Then it finally happened, the road led past a big modern house with lots of barking farm dogs, there were cattle in paddocks on either side, horses approaching the fence, and a large steer in the middle of the road. It was all happening. Nooooooo I thought, looking at the loose cattle beast as the dogs barked on. It spooked and ran down the road a bit as I took a few steps, but it was a straight, narrow road and there were more cattle in paddocks on both sides. It was mooing at them and they were looking at it and me, and mooing back. I had a go at walking towards it again, picking up a tree branch to hold, but it spooked, ran further down the road but then turned around to face me. I could see this wasn’t going to work, I couldn’t really squeeze past it and it had already jumped a fence to get there so wouldn’t like being pushed down further from its paddock mates. I stood frantically trying to figure out what to do, in the middle of nowhere.

I had a go at walking up the driveway to the house, the dogs barking and one smaller one loose on the driveway. No signs of life, no vehicles, and not a happy dog – not a good idea to go to the door. I remembered there was another house half a kilometre back (after being none for ages) so I thought I’d give it a go. I’d only seen two cars in about four hours, so waiting for a car didn’t seem viable. Luckily there was no ‘beware of dog’ sign and the house looked nice enough with cars outside, and hopefully people inside. Luck was on my side and a friendly woman about the same age as me answered the door. She was a vet and said I’d totally done the right thing because her neighbour’s cattle were pretty grumpy and the one on the loose wouldn’t have been happy about me walking at it. Apparently her neighbours also had a few properties they went between, and weren’t home. I was so relieved I’d found help! She’d give me a ride past in her truck and then try to put it back in a paddock with help from her partner. What a legend!

It took me a while to relax into a walking rhythm again. The road changed to asphalt and there were a few more signs of life and houses. The gift shop in the middle of nowhere was open, so I bought a chocolate bar and some spearmint leaves. The train went by, there was a slight increase in traffic, and then the footpaths of Taumarunui finally came into view! At the first dairy, although it really wasn’t that warm I got an ice cream to propel me the last little bit.

Approaching the main street where the motel was, I could see the other one that was booked out, and the pizza shop. I was so busy looking at the pizza shop I walked past my motel and had to backtrack! New World was right there though, and the sun was shining so if I had a quick shower maybe I could get some washing dry – I was a happy camper.

I wrote out a to-do list for the afternoon/evening, and got stuck in starting with the washing. I went to the i-SITE to check in about Tongariro Crossing weather, double checked on whether biking the 42 Traverse was an option, and how the weather was. It was still too far out really to know about the crossing, but the cycle option was a no go as Te Araroa goes the ‘wrong way’ (uphill) and they don’t hire bikes to solo travellers for safety reasons. It filled me with confidence about walking solo! The highlight of my afternoon was the best toastie cheese sandwich, with pineapple and ham. Worth travelling more than 1000km for (which I only just realised I have after checking the map).

Later I went back to New World to food shop for the next few days. It was a mission to get low waste options but I decided packaging that I could keep and put in soft plastics recycling somewhere was better than the rest. I bought eggs to hard boil, breakfast porridge bar thingys, chocolate, crackers, cheese, pesto spread, 2 minute noodles (not nutritious but annoyingly tasty I found early in lockdown), a carrot, an apple, lollies and some trail mix from the bulk bins – which at least came in the new paper bags! I felt like I had enough food, wasn’t sure of the nutritional value, and it seemed heavier than my meals. I figured it wouldn’t kill me though and had good novelty factor. Tomorrow I’m off on another gravel road for about 28km to Ōwhango, but have sorted a bed in a nice backpacker type place at least. The weather looks ok for the two days after that on the 42 Traverse, but I tried not to worry too much yet about the river crossing.