Day 52 - Palmerston North

Once again another road walking day. The last big one of the trail. A 45km day to Palmerston North. Kate and Fraser who are now two days behind me decided to do the Whanganui to Palmerston North in one 110km stretch; walking for 24hrs straight. My original plan, but my feet are not up for it.  I think I may be developing a stress fracture with my right foot. 

11am photo, a wholly uneventful and uninteresting day on the side roads 

The roads were broken up with some bike paths, and a couple farm walks. The weather has been surprisingly mild which has been fantastic. Better than hot sun on the roads, and much better than pouring rain. 

A the day progressed I became increasingly slow. My feet were giving up on me, not quite to the point of being painful, but it did not feel good. I took nap in the city cemetery and slept like the dead. Gave my feet a good break. 

Tonight I’m staying at a trail angels in town. A very kind retired couple who are very selfless. They are constantly doing volunteer events and hosting people from the TA and abroad. They even have 5 retired Greyhound racing dogs. Gretel was here as well. I haven’t seen her in a couple weeks and it was good to catch up. Gail, the trail angel, cooked us some chicken burgers for dinner. Excellent. A zero day tomorrow, and I genuinely feel the need for it. 

Now, I also feel the need to be clear with my intentions with the trail. They’re many different reasons to hike the Te Araroa, and many different ways to hike it. Most people on the trail end up skipping sections that can be considered less enjoyable (Im looking at you roads). As such people usually only hike around 2700km of the total 3025km trail. One of the main reasons I’m hiking the trail is to challenge myself. To me this means hiking over 3000km, a nice sounding achievement. imo this goal also means I can say that I walked the length of New Zealand. When I reach milestones such as 1000km or the end of the trail I want to say with good conscience that I walked those 1000km or the length of an entire country. Perhaps less than 10% of walkers actually walk over 3000km, and less that 5% are purists. Purists are those who walk every single step of the TA. I’m not a purist, I find it too tedious and takes away too much freedom. But I respect the game. For me walking 3000km is enough. While I have done some small hitches I have also been, and will be, making up the km’s some other way. I only deviate from the TA when I need to. So, in short, net zero km’s from the official TA route is my goal.