Road, road, road. We spent the morning strolling around Bulls, appreciating the many paintings, puns and bull statues around.

And then we walked, on the road, a straight road, a boring road. Road.

Roadwalking.

But also: delish fish & chips for lunch!

And: a big family dinner with 13 hikers at a trail angel's place, plus a real bed for the night, which was very nice.

Finally the trail leads back into nature, and I'm back in the rhythm of walking. And today, on day 69, I've passed the 1500 km marker, having officially hiked (more than) half the trail! 😄 So from now on, I've walked more than there is left to be done. It's a weird feeling, but of course I'm also proud, and grateful for the strong and healthy body that has brought me until here.

The campsite for the night is cute, and it has a tiled restroom with real ceramic seating 😯 instead of the usual discoloured plastic. The other big highlight is a swimming hole with waterfall, which made for a perfect cold dip and shower.

It rained all night and morning, but that didn't bring us down, because it was BUSH TIME!!! 🌿 Mud, stream crossings, mud, wet ferns in our faces, mud, steep ascents, mud, slippery descents, mud... Great stuff.

We reached our planned destination for the day at lunchtime already, so decided to walk on while the weather was OK-ish. A great decision, because we ended up in a magical forest area that was ideal for camping, close to a perfect little stream for another cold nature bath 💦

A beautiful morning walk through the forest, with one steep and muddy ascent followed by a long and gentle descent. After that we crossed numerous picturesque bush streams along a very lovely trail.

One very rainy roadwalk later we reached Poads Road, where we were picked up by trail angel Geoff. He drove us to his place in Levin, where paradise awaited us: hot shower, laundry, a roof, and: a private room with double bed 🥰 #sprawling!

We had an amazing nutritious family dinner with LOTS of veggies, what a feast, and good chats. It felt like another Christmas. Needless to say, the sleep I had after this was the best.

Heavy rain and strong wind make it dangerous for us to walk over mountain ridges, so we decided to wait for better weather in Levin.

In the five rest days we had, we did some interesting conservation work (picking weeds from the dunes to make space for native plants, setting rat raps in the forest), we visited Foxton's Dutch windmill and I made traditional Dutch stamppot for dinner, we spent some hours being very lazy and... I shaved my head! I'm loving the buzz cut for convenience, but need to get used to my mirror image 😬