A bit of a means to an end section, Turakina’s driftwood strewn black sand beach was the highlight. Mainly road walking though.07. Manawatu
A bit of a means to an end section, Turakina’s driftwood strewn black sand beach was the highlight. Mainly road walking though.Rangitikei Bridge
All a bit grey and boring today. Roads roads roads. It’s about this sort of time you begin to question what you’re doing and whether wondering along the side of a busy road is a brilliant plan! And looking over the side into the water only reminds me that I’ve lost my Tenkara fishing rod… Lost in Taumaranui :( Gutted.
Fishies.. You’ll be safe for a while yet.
Huge bridge over the smaller than expected Rangitikei River (probably could of forded it and carried along the black beach). The bull puns kept coming on the way out of town, clothes shop -> la-bulls, gravel merchant -> crush-a-bull, light industrial units -> build-a-bull..Bulls to Fielding
Lots more roads…. Lots of Tarmac. A few hedges. You get the gist. Fields. Sheep. Cows… The odd fella on a quad bike bezzin about in a field. Not enough places to have a wee in farmville! Mostly on quiet country roads today from Bulls to Fielding. There’s a nice picnic spot on route – Lees Reserve, where we stopped for an early lunch.Beautiful Fielding
More fields, and yet more fields along looooooonng staaaaaight roads. Finally we get there. And got tucked into a motel. Zzzzz Only one more stint and we’re at Palmy :)According to the brochure in our motel, Fielding has been voted ‘most beautiful town in New Zealand’ no less than 14 times! Shame the only picture I took there was of my breakfast..Fielding to Palmerston North
Windy. A few planes to look at. Good to have our own raised verge to traverse the road though. And the occasional train to have a gander at. Getting windier and windier. Windy Welly may well be pretty breezy judging by the amount of wind turbines in the hills ahead. Just walking today mostly… Left right left right!The route between Fielding and Palmerston North was more pleasant than it looked on the map. Nice big grassy bit between Cambell Road and the train line for walking on.Many Stiles, Paper Roads
A cheeky rest respite from tarmac led us on a merry dance. Through suburban streets and over some fences into peoples gardens we went… were these Te Araroa signs glued up here as a gag? Surely we’re not supposed to climb in there. There’s a dog kennel! After hoping over half a dozen stiles and a few locked gates in quick succession, we stopped for a little break. The friendly folk who live nearby popped out with a big jug of iced-water and chocolate for us :) They were quite surprised to see so many hikers today (apparently a group of six came through this morning), and were wondering why it was so popular all of a sudden. Not sure who the six were, not heard of any group of Te Araroa hikers that large, but maybe a few people have merged together? They also confirmed our suspicion that the definition of a paper road was – it’s a road on paper (public access), but there ain’t no road in reality.Fishy Drains
Fishy drains all over the place on the way into Palmy. Every single one making me regret losing my fishing rod! Looks like fish jump out of the drains in the streets here and I’ll still not be catching one for dinner! :) Bugger.
Palmerston North & Aberdeen Steakhouse
A tasty fillet I did have in the Angus. With green pepper sauce no less. I can feel the protein seeping into my arms and legs like spinach into Popeye. Hopefully that’ll give me some umph in the next section :)
We grabbed a place to stay at the Aztec Motel in Palmerston. The bed was so comfy I really didn’t wanna get out and head off the next day! And our mustachioed manager looked after us very well. Chatting to us about our adventures and taking a shot of us under his sign before we left. Wished we’d jumped in the pool though! :)
I was quite excited to find a steakhouse flyer in our motel room, haven’t had a proper steak in ages. Biggest steak on the menu was this T-bone, although if I had any scales on me I would of weighed it as it looked like the chef had nibbled a bit off, leaving me feeling a bit short changed.. It was an OK steak, nothing special. Not sure about veg with my steak, prefer the simple meat and potato combo myself. Best thing about the meal was actually the wine – ‘The Navigator’ from Hawkes Bay somewhere, first bottle we’ve had in New Zealand with a proper cork and it was yum!Hay Fever! Ergh…
Seem to have developed some ripe hay fever the past few days! Awesome haha :) Just what you need when you’re living put doors for 6months ;) … Bloody grassy bits in yer eyes!
We got a bit confused about where the official trail was going out of Palmerston, clearly trying to avoid the road, but after a few excursions, following the road seemed a lot more straight forward. Summerhill Drive had a path up it and Turitea Road was nice and quiet.Alpacas are too Cute
Look at these cheeky dudes! Just what you need to cheer you up on a long road walk :) These fellas were really inquisitive, and entertaining. Quite expressive cheeky faces! Some awesome hairdos and beards were being sported. All of them with their own brand of farmer, rock star, sailor, or dougal cut. Felt sorry for the one chap with the giant protruding goofy teeth and bog eyes, in with all his cute friends. Rough deal matey!
Was considering ‘borrowing’ one to carry my pack for me… But I’m not sure what I’d do with him on the ferry. Would he be charged as vehicle or foot passenger ? Does he need a life jacket? Who knows.
Since, Nicky hasn’t stopped talking about getting a pet Alpaca all day, I decided to do some research as I know nothing about them other than they’re a bit like Llamas.
Their primary purpose is to grow hair, apparently Alpaca fiber is much like sheeps wool, except lighter, softer, warmer and not itchy at all. You can eat them, their meat is called La Viande (in Austrailia), apparently it is quite a lean meat with a taste described as “similar to sweet lamb”.
Best of all (in terms of keeping an Alpaca as a pet) is they use a communal dung pile. Because of their tidy toilet habits some alpacas have been successfully house-trained!
But what about their famous spitting of greeny grass stomach bile? Well apparently they generally reserve this treatment for other Alpacas, but will occasionally spit at a human. All in all, they get the thumbs up from me, how much are they?
