Yesterday's stiff climb up the Rimutaka's, walking my bike down the other side in heavy wind and having to hitch hike left me sore in new places and emotionally drained today. I took breaks when I found nice spots in towns, which on the north island is apparently super common, and by 3pm I had moved hardly 35km. I had made it to Masterton and decided I'd camp here. I wanted to relax and recharge, and this seemed like a nice place to do that.

So far the north island seems pretty similar to the south, with the big exception of population. As I've talked about before, I often went entire days of riding to get from camp to the next town with food. Today in my measly ride I saw 3 towns (counting Masterton) that, by comparison to my last two months, were pretty large towns. Big enough for a library and a McDonald's!

I walked back to town to maybe hit up a bar for New Year's Eve. The place was pretty dead, so I went back to reading, and I'm not just saying that because my mom reads this!