Russel to Punaruku

Day 17
Date 5 November
Km 0
Cumulative Km 228.6

Marie, Moritz and I caught the 11am ferry into Russel, across the bay from Paihia. Still lovely and sunny weather the whole day and we spent time walking around the village and enjoying the beautiful old homes. Fish and chips for lunch- when Marie learned not to order a large portion of chips as that in essence means family size! In fact I ordered a small portion and had lunch and dinner from it!

After Sheryl was finished work, she took us back to her place where we set up camp. We also had tea and she bought out some apple pie to share. The farm is a lovely piece of land and has wild horses on it.

James, an English guy I met earlier in the hike, had said that if South Africa win the Rugby World Cup, he would buy me a beer. I said I prefer cider. He, a man of his word, left some money at Sheryls place for her to buy some cider before I arrived. Sheryl wasn’t going to skimp and she bought a whole 1.25l! So there was enough for everyone to celebrate the victory! Whoever thought that a Kiwi will be drinking to the Springboks!?
We were drinking the cider from our tea cups- how English. Sheryl says, “I will only have half” . We all laughed as it should be noted that she had a massive 0.5l mug! 🙂

Day 18
Date 6 November
Km 0
Cumulative Km 228.6

Today Marie and Moritz headed out through the Russel forest while I got a ride from Sheryl’s place to Sue’s place. Sue has a place to stay after the forest. It’s a great backpackers and there are tent spaces. A great kitchen to use and hot shower!! All of these are luxuries to us!

I promise to welcome Moritz with a hot cup of tea- apparently a dream of his for the trail- and also dry out everyone’s tents. This way Marie’s dream will come true too as she has an obsession with having a dry tent. For good reason of course!

The guys also left behind their food, for me to take by car, so their packs were much lighter for the day!