the weekend started early friday morning, with greg arriving around 9 or 10 to pick up myself, all my gear and the tomix layout. we had a nice, cruisy trip up, stopping now and then for photos and just to have a break from the van.
we stopped at the makatote viaduct, which has recently completed being refurbished. while there, we got a txt from blair to see where we were, and saying to stay as dora [the northern explorer] was on her way shortly. blair, lloryian, kylie and keegan pulled into the rest stop, and shortly after dora thundered across the gap.
we carried on our ways, with greg and i stopping again at the foot of the raurimu spiral, where we just caught dora, and again at the another lookout which had a view of both the tracks and also the whanganui river, the same river that runs through my home town. after dora passed through there, we carried on, enjoying the scenery and easy conversation.
we stopped for lunch at taumuranui, just missing dora. we wouldnt catch up again. from there, we went on our way. eventually, we arrived in waiuku and headed out of town towards the camp we were staying at, which was 45min out of town. it took all day to make the journey, and we arrived around 8.30 that night, keen for the 5am wake up call for glenbrook on the saturday morning.