Te Araroa day 31 - Kahuterawa to Toilet Camp / mile 959 [Halfway Point]

"This campsite needs a name or it's going to end as Toilet Camp" Clei

One month in the trail! I've went pass Te Araroa's half way point. It was a grindy day, Tararua's showed what they are made of.
I was planning for a big day and many miles. Altitude wasn't looking too bad it was a lot of climbing but nothing too steep. The only thing I didn't take into consideration was mud and stream crossings. Big mistake, and so my finish line was cut back, twice.

First couple of miles went really well, trail climbed up and went past a cool looking and well maintained hut. Here I met Clei from France, she couldn't speak much English but we managed to communicate quite well. We both knew that the trail from here will be full of mud which will progressively get worse throughout the day. Clei went first, I finished eating breakfast and followed.
At first trail wasn't too demanding but there was a lot of water everywhere, streams often spilled onto the path making it trickier to manoeuvre. Weather was definitely on our side, after cloudy morning the sun came out and we didn't have to worry about rain. After couple of hours trail came out of the forest onto a gravel road. Here I met Graham a local landowner who really wanted to show me an information board he made about a local 100-year old hydro, power station. It was interesting listening to his stories of how people managed to build it within five years, completing the task in 1924. Power station was operational until today. We walked right next to one of the three dams storing water for it.
Right on Graham's land, the second, grinder section of the trail begun. It was going uphill for several hours, without switchbacks through a heavy mud. It took the rest of energy I had stored for today and around 6pm I decided to call it a day.
The campsite I arrived on was called "Toilet" on the GPS tracker. It was definitely a campsite AND it had a toilet, so it was some kind of funny typo. Toilet Camp had an access to water, a wooden table and many grassy, flat spots to pitch the tent which I hastily did. Half an hour later Clei arrived, she also looked absolutely knackered.

Tomorrow the path goes through the highest part of Tararua's so plans might have to be adjusted again but that's the charm of hiking in the mountains.

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