(2015/01/16-18)…Rieds Farm was a great spot to stay, a refreshing and cool river, spots with lots of shade and I think the best shit pits I have ever seen. They had tiles on the wall and ground, a pot made from ceramic and a prober and not so cheap lid. Sadly I had to stay out from the river, because i didn’t wanted to risk any infection of my still bleeding and bad looking wound. Our breakfast was followed by a burner inquisition, as Max tried, and I am sure successful, convinced one of the young here camping backpacker to get the idea of burn and maybe later to attend one of the burns which exists around the globe. Packed, we got back on the road, destination Vinigar Hill Campground.
I really liked Max’s idea to hangout there and see if some more burners we can get to join, the pre-burn. Two tents, two burners, camping gear and some beers, looked already like s small official camp for our non-official pre-burn. During our lunch break, Max draw our missing camp sign, which we printed out in the copy shop on the other side of the street. This long drive was always interrupted by working zones where they gave the road a new seal and always had to slowdown to snail speed, because loose gravel topped the road. A bit later we had to stop for about 40 minutes, caused byan helicopter landing. What happened couldn’t we saw, only police, firefighters and a medical car.
Around 7pm our camp was setup and we started the our pre-burn. Even there was no phone signal, like on some other burns. A last run with the car to the top of the hill was necessary to post on the Kiwiburn Facebook page, where we are staying and searching for further burners. Yay, one reply that he will be there in two days. Fire? Of course we had a fire, which we used to make our dinner. Potatoes in beer and onion in a pan above the camp fire, like they do on a farm in Idaho, Max told.
We used the next days to discover the surrounding villages and Palmerston North, where we bought our last burner stuff (Solar LED lights) and supplies for the next week. The camp fee of 5 NZD was really low, for having flush toilets, shower, a water tap and a bag for trash which was allowed to place near the toilets. This service was better then on any DOC campground. As we started the fire at night again, it attracted a local who hanged out at the campground already a bit longer. Fire, beer, potatoes and nice conversations; perfect. Oh, I forgot to mention that we had music and I placed one of my LED strips from the LukeZug in the tree. I think it was really a good setup for a pre-burn.
For the last night the burner, Bacon, showed up and we repeated that night. He had to work for the MPW (DPW) and therefore he couldn’t stay for another night. Sadly no other burner answered to our proclamation of the pre-burn. Bacon told us that they will setup and finish the gate tomorrow and we had early entry due to my art project, we decided to get in there one day earlier as planed…