• Te Araroa Day 63
• Manawatū River Walk – 10.81 km in 3 hours 50 minutes

After a small section solo yesterday, Mum had kindly agreed to join me on another Palmerston North part of Te Araroa today. We were up at a reasonable time to catch the bus out to a random location kind of near Hokowhitu, where we could pop down a lane from a suburban street and onto the Manawatū River Walk. I don’t think either of us would describe this part of the walk as the prettiest, but we were out there doing it! The wind was brisk, e-bikers zipped past, and there were some family school holiday outings in progress.

An hour in we saw a sign for Hokowhitu cafe, and since Fi had recommended the lagoon of the same name, and because I was already hungry we trotted off in that direction leaving the river. The café was located right in the middle of the golf course and seemed to function as their club rooms too. Odd that the sign didn’t mention this, but their scones were delicious.

The lagoon was lovely to walk alongside – much more picturesque than the river! There were canoe polo courts set up, and large luxurious houses with docks.

We rejoined the river trail at the Fitzherbert bridge briefly but headed off to find the Wildbase Recovery amongst the Esplanade. After doing the Forest & Bird walk, seeing the regular birds in the aviary, and admiring the cute mini train, we finally located it. A volunteer explained which birds were currently there, and we were lucky to see two adult pāteke, and a duckling. I have to admit I hadn’t heard of them before seeing signs about them back in Northland. The whio were hiding, and the rurus had been discharged, but we saw a Kārearea and in the long term resident enclosure two kererū which were very tame. The work they do certainly is special and it’s great to see places like this. Dunedin also has an awesome wildlife hospital.

Back on the river path, our last destination was He Ara Kotahi – a flash new bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. Mum had done so well, we’d walked 10.8 km!

We ubered back to our motel for a well deserved cup of tea. Shout out to the small team of Palmerston North Uber drivers and their electric vehicles for helping us get around sustainably!

I tried to catch up on some blogging, before we had pizza for dinner. Domino’s seems to have some cycling pizza delivery staff in Christchurch, and this store had e-bikes! Cardboard pizza boxes can go in the green organics bin in Christchurch so pizza is loosely in my ‘low waste approved’ takeaways category – along with bring your own container St Pierre’s sushi.

I’ve had so many lovely messages from family and friends that I haven’t felt like I’ve been walking alone so far, but it was really special that Mum could keep me company in person on some of Te Araroa today. She’s been such a big help on this journey getting all the food parcels in the post, as well as thinking ahead and posting other items I might need, and of course keeping an eye on my progress during each day. I think we’ve packed a lot into our time here together, and it’s been just the right length of time – I feel mentally refreshed and ready to keep going on the journey south to Wellington.