Today- 24km from Birchwood Cabin to Otautau

Total- 2857km

Left Birchwood Station earlier than our usual time at around 9am this morning. It was a great sleep, and free coffee too. What a treat.

Encountered a classic kiwi traffic jam up the road, loads of sheep, so waited for them to pass through then kept walking.

We had a hot sweaty climb to start the day on the Woodlaw track, but the view was pretty cool. It was super hot though! !

At the start of the track there was some signage telling us of tree falling going on. Luckily noone had any issue and we walked past some machinery at work.

The view from the top was pretty cool.

Caught up with lots of hikers today, theres the french crew of Myriam, Oli, Emeric and Paul, me the Kiwi, and Marte & Jasper who are Dutch.

Super North Island vibes today, reminded me a bit of walking through the Waitangi forest in Northland.

Today was all farm track and 4WD so easy walking. My ankle was a little niggly this morning but got better as the day wore on.

Cool toadstools everywhere in the forest today.

Once we had lunch, it was only 4km left then we got to the highway where we said see ya to the others , as E and I were going into the closest town to get some food.

Successful hitch from some nice Aussies, then we played tourist as usual getting into Otautau.

Successful resupply with all the essentials, and we arrived at Holt park campground, where the host Sandra showed us around, we did laundry, hot showers and had dinner and a beer, perfect!

Emeric cooking dinner, legend.