Day 8 – Riverton to Winton

The lack of a route through into the Takitimus meant that I couldn’t access the Takitimus from Ohai, so I had to go far around to Mossburn and come in along the Aparima river. This meant hitching all the way back to Invercargill to get on the main highway going north, then back west again. My first hitch came pretty quickly - a nice young couple. They took me all the way to Invercargill and dropped me off right where route 6 headed North. I then waited two hours fruitlessly, trying various combinations of pack on, pack off, sitting, standing, left thumb or right thumb. Hundreds of cars passed me. After all that time, the simple idea occurred to me that I should move maybe a hundred meters closer to the interchange, before people picked up speed. Success! This ride took me to Winton, where I got stuck waiting for yet another ride. By five or so I decided it was too late to get the three rides I probably still needed – one to Lumsden, one to Mossburn, then one out onto the country roads as close to Aparima as I could get. So I bought a room at one of the local pubs and met a tour operator and a farm manager over beers. They had been trying unsuccessfully to fix the gearbox on the one guy’s truck, and had come to get drunk before having another go at it, in hopes the beer would unlock some previously unknown mechanical trickery.