Unfortunately we did not have a great night’s sleep last night. After settling down into our tent with a few other campers in the area and drifting off to sleep, about 11:30pm a group of four travelers came along in a camper van (specifically a Juicy van as pictured below) and proceeded to sit outside their van with the lights on and drink and be loud until about 2:30. Despite being really tired we ended up getting up at 6am to get an early start as we’d planned and made sure to be as loud as possible around the van. Unfortunately it’s people like this leaving their trash outside that is ruining the concept of freedom camping in New Zealand for those who actually use it as intended.

We had a ~25km road day ahead of us and wanted to get into town with as much of the afternoon to spare as possible to do laundry, get food, plan the next few weeks, and relax. We had great cloud coverage all the way and ended up reaching the town around noon, just in time for a pie before checking into the motel and lunch. The road walking was unsurprisingly boring after the last few days on the Timber Trail and it was really just a section to get through. We ended up being so bored walking that we didn’t pay attention to the notes and walked on the highway for half the day instead of the little side road with a lot less traffic. Luckily we were able to switch over halfway through underneath a railway bridge.

We checked into a motel where we were for some reason given an extra large room and have since spent the rest of the day cleaning and relaxing and eating. We’ll do some resupply in the morning and get ready for another day on the road.