Ngaruawahia to hamilton
The walk to Hamilton uses a 3m wide sealed path alongside the Waikato River pretty much all the way. There's a crossover to the true right on the Perry Bridge...
... being another bridge built to allow children to get to school (Palmerston North, are you listening?).
Quite an unfair number of bridges span this river and all of them are wonderful...
After 4 hours that included two pa, the Te Rapa dairy factory and the Equestrian Centre, I left the riverside for central Hamilton.
I made a beeline for Kathmandu at Centre Place to buy replacement Kevlar laces. The left trail shoe "lace" (actually a thin wiry garrotte) is visibly wearing after 800km.
Online, Kathmandu list the replacements as a $29.99 kit. At the shop I was told to go to the store at Te Rapa, as I was at the "high end" outlet. One of those red rage mists overcame me but off I went to find a bus to The Base, as that execrable hellhole of chain retailers is known.
Same story there. "We have never stocked them but can send your footwear away" Fierce demonstration to K staff of their own website. Energetic insistence that you can't stock footwear without laces. "Are you the lady who was at our Centre Place store..?" Clearly they were warned about a footsore oddly dressed actual outdoor person looking for a bus!
Just as they (three lovely young women) must've been wondering how to remove me, the youngest said,"are these what you're looking for?" Out of the odds and ends drawer she pulled a mint pack of replacement laces. General excitement. "You can have them for free, they're not even on our stock list". Eureka. Red mist cleared, and tonight with the help of a youtube video, I fitted the new lace. So people, Kathmandu came through. I bet they stock garrottes from now on. (I did spend actual money there, on a UV resistant shirt but according to Dayna who helped me, it will look patu (grubby) in no time. I explained darker colours are hotter to wear and she showed me the shirt repels bugs. Goodness knows with what)
Made my way back to the depot and caught the bus to Morrinsville, where my sister lives. I calculated that I began using exactly this bus 50 years ago, for the hour-long journey from Waitoa to secondary school in Hamilton and home again. Fifty years, it feels like the other day.
Nice to see arty cows, here is Rose who stands in the Morrinsville Primary School yard. She has a ladybird on her tail.
The Rongotea Coffee Drinkers Who Walk were in touch today. I realised it must be Wednesday!
