Day 41: Golf in New Zealand
November 20th, 2019
Kilometers: 1006.3-1006.3
Kelly’s Motel-Kelly’s Motel
Finally we have arrived at our next rest day. The motel we are staying at is actually pretty nice. The beds are very comfortable and the shower gets scalding hot.
Alex and I were both up around 6am and both tuned in for the public hearings on impeachment back in the states.
We listened to that for about an hour before deciding it was a good idea to formulate our schedule for the next 10 days or so considering we have to take weather in Tongariro into account as well as our canoeing section.
We ultimate ended up deciding to do five days on the canoeing section which will begin sometime early next week.
With this news, we went and met Matthew for breakfast at McDonalds where he decided he would join us for the upcoming days. We then went to New World and resupplied our food for the next three days of hiking.
We returned home and Alex booked the canoe hire for the Belgians, Matthew, and the two of us. They informed us we would need to take our food over their today and go for a safety course. This meant going back to New World and resupplying for a second time today.
After we got all of that taken care of, Alex and I decided we wanted to play some golf on our day of relaxation. The course was just over two kilometers out of town so naturally, we walked. Peter joined us and drove the cart.
The course was really pretty and despite the 20 year old clubs we rented, we played decently well. Alex ended up beating me by 1 stroke.
We returned from golf and picked up some chicken from a takeaway along the way.
At 3:30, we went back to New World where Taumarunui Canoe Hire picked us up.
They took us back to their facility and put us into the safety course right away.
Matthew seems a bit nervous for the section but I think this is the most excited Alex and I have been. The river has some good rapids which should make for some really fun days.
Not only did they bake us delicious fresh bread but they had some unbelievably cute puppies at the place.
After our seminar and a lot of paperwork, they drove us back to town.
We all met back up for dinner at a pizza place, our last dinner before getting back on the trail.
We all went home after dinner as we all were exhausted and started getting ready for bed.
We have a 27km day tomorrow, which should be very similar to the day getting into Taumarunui. We still need to mail off our bounce box and go to a few stores in town so we will have a slightly later than usual departure.
-Ethan