Nov 22 Russell Forest hut - Morepork track

You're not gong to believe this, I can hardly even writing this. I waited before packing up so I would have a dry tent. At about 7 I saw the sun trying to get through the clouds so I made a run for it. Every morning I always have a towel to wipe the condensation from the inside walls. That was done. As Soon as my tent pole was out it started pouring rain. Just a complete downfall. My perfectly dry tent is now all wet. Just laying on my groundsheet getting soaked I had to roll it up and put it in the bag.

5 minutes later, sun came out and no more rain. The early bird sure didn't get the worm today. Anyways.

It was a nice walk out of the forest on an ATV track. 4 km until we got to a road which I had to follow for 15km. Today is my first real test of road walking.

It's quite dull but the highway was very quite with about 10 cars passing over 3 hours. Road walking makes for good time as well. 

My knee...again was in pain and this road walking didn't help so when I saw there was a holiday park just off the highway I was really really pursuaded to go there. It was Whangaruru Beachfront motel and camp. I started walking down the steep hill for probably 100m then decided 'hell coming up this is really going to do damage to my knee, let's keep going'. So I did, I kept on track and met up with Richard at km mark 288. 

We both went the wrong way and I didn't figure this out until 3 km in. Luckily there was a turnoff spot where we were so we waited and tried to hitch back down. Two minutes later a father and so. Pulled over and have us a 3km lift back to the right road. (We kept going up Russell road and didn't turn off onto Webb road. Sharp left turn)

Walking another 13 km we came to the start of the Morepork Track. Pitched the tent and had a good rest. The rest of the crew arrived a couple hours later. 

A farmer came around quite late and said he would bring us apples and meat tomorrow for breakfast. Let's see what he brings us.