Forget the running......leave that to Jezz Bragg

We tried running to Hamilton from Auckland as the track was essentially a river side track which in our mind's thought it would be easy going. Lesson #1 - never underestimate te araroa. We had head height gorse bushes to fight through, poorly marked tracks and overgrown vegetation ripping away at our shins. Anyway, with no desire left to run we plodded on to Rangiriri Tavern where the food was excellent and the locals were drunk. One of which invited us back to his place to crash for the night after hearing Emily at the bar enquiring about places to camp in the area. He moved empty boxes of Lion Brown beer, newspaper, tools, a chainsaw and a rifle out of the back seats of his ute so that we could take a ride out to his place! Back to his for a couple more Double Brown beers then out for the count. Very very nice of Jason to offer us a room for the night and the experience was fine but his place was a little rough to say the least. He's a tractor driver in the summer and a posom trapper in the winter. His girlfriend was really sweet. A dairy farmer by trade and she told us of how she's just survived a terrible car crash resulting in nerve damage, paralysed fingers, lazy eye, ruptured liver and kidneys etc etc. She was txting whilst driving! We got dropped off back at Rangiriri the next day and ventured on through huntly, where we had to leap over a fence from a heard of young bulls and then retreat from a field of 5 massive bulls shortly after, and up in a beautiful forest where we camped for the night. We cleared an ideal spot, then pitched the tent on a bed of punga leaves as we had left the air mattresses behind. It was pretty comfortable yet we were up at first light to tackle the remainder of this awesome forest. To be in a rainforest for a hazy, misty, atmospheric sunrise was a awesome experience. I'll take that over a coffee anyday. Anyway, i could keep typing away but should get up and start the day as we head to pirongia today. Speak soon