A Dangerous Business

Date: 19th November 2023

Gonna keep it nice and short today. Nothing much of note happened. I had a nice sleep in, waking up to see… dry ground. Where’s the rain that I used as an excuse to take a zero day here? Some did come throughout the day, but it was pretty dry for the most part.

I did finally meet Alan. He got in around 11pm after the forgotten guitar fiasco. We spent a good part of today discussing everything from the state of New Zealand’s railways to birdlife. He was a lovely host, going out of his way to make us feel welcome.

Job-wise, the only things I needed to get done were a food resupply from New World and laundry, neither of which took much time at all. For the most part, I spent most of today with my feet up, which can’t be a bad thing for my feet. I’m asking them to put up with a lot, I suppose they deserve a reward every now and then.

Looking ahead, tomorrow I’ll finally be leaving Northland, heading into Auckland via Pakiri Beach. There’s one major obstacle standing in between me and New Zealand’s largest city: the Dome Forest. It looks to be a very challenging and muddy walk, with a lot of reports of people recommending to split it into 2 days instead of the 1 day I had planned. Moreover, there is rain forecast for the next couple days (small amounts, thankfully). It is making me feel pretty nervous about what I’ll have to face and I must admit I did start looking at potential bail out points if it all goes pear-shaped. It also doesn’t help when most of the gang wants to do it all in one day and I really don’t want to leave them. Guess I’ll just have to take things one day at a time. The trail becomes less overwhelming when you think about it like that.