In which a pine forest is home for the night

I snapped a picture of this intriguing building from the Trail and after breasting a rise, learned it was my destination, Pagoda camp. The note on the gate said, closed until October. 

Oh well, keep moving. And I even kept moving when I passed these treasures

telling myself, too heavy to carry. However, my subconscious greedy primate brain sent an urgent message to my rational you're-no-fun brain that I could eat most of a bagful on the spot. So I went back, put my coin in the letterbox, and like a Gombe Stream chimp, carried my bootie to Lands & Survey georeference marker RM69 (being a handy concrete plinth) and prepared to gorge myself. 

Remember my opshopped knife? Well the lady was right, it is very sharp. As I felt around in my pack for it, I proved it. Blood everywhere and did I tell you I cut the neighbouring finger on a scalpel rooting around in my pack exactly the same way in the Kaimanawas 25 years ago? 

So it wasn't a foot or a knee that suffered ongeluk, but a finger which is fine now, happily. 

Sticky with juice and blood I just got walking again until my energy finally ran out, two-thirds of the way through Waitangi Forest. 

She who expected to camp at Pagoda wasn't carrying much water and three hours earlier rejected the first fire pond she passed. With 20.4km walked, it was time to find a camp so I filled the bottle and walked on till I found a flat, private, corner where I spent a cosy night. No wind at all. Just moreporks and Marcel and me. 

This morning (Saturday 29 Sep) I was moving again by 0620hrs which is how I came to be looking out at the Bay of Islands from Bledisloe Lookout in early sunlight. 

I reached Waitangi Treaty Grounds five minutes after it opened. Wonderful museum. Wonderful Treaty House and carved Meeting House. Wonderful weather. Wonderful lunch reunion with a former student, now old friend. 

And on to Paihia where I am now, blogging from the youth hostel. A nice man at the i-site found a boatie to ferry me up Waikare Inlet tomorrow. The two lads from the Beach turned up and said they'd come too. 

Yep, it's pai here. My next post will appear once I get through Russell Forest and down to somewhere like Whananaki. Four days?