Te Araroa (day 72) - Lower Wairaki Hut to Twinlaw Mast / mile 1792

Navigating through the last long section of Te Araroa sobo continued.

After a steady climb from the Lower Wairaki Hut, I've reached the last scenic ridge walk on TA. The weather was perfect for the procedure. On my way down I've met a group of Northbounders and got an intel about upcoming day - it was mainly farmland, the trail run on the 4wd road.

I've reached the campsite on the other side of the hill at 9 am, here the easier track begun. Road was covered with animal excrements and.. corpses. I've never seen so many dead sheep in my life, it was a little bit disturbing. They all seemed to be dying by the fence line next to which the trail was running. 
There was one shallow river crossing in this section, I had to do another one after I've followed the road too far and missed a turning point. Linton Farm involved a lot of redirections, owners did not want TA hikers to walk through certain points and the trail was twisting and turning all the time.

In the afternoon I've met Chetan from Mauritius, I already seen him once before. He decided to push through Te Anau and walk straight to Riverton. I've spend rest of the day hiking with him. Chetan left his job as an animal injection manufacturer and was planning to join search and rescue police department after finishing the hike. He was still waiting for his resident visa to come through in order to do so. Despite not being legally a New Zealander yet, Chetan had very defensive opinions about the country and treated it as his homeland. He was getting annoyed with people complaining that Te Araroa was too hard and it wasn't "like other trails", he suggested that Doc should rebrand the TA from "hiking" into "tramping" trail and that it could help it's overall perception in the eyes of European and American hikers.
Chetan decided to head off trail to a very popular Birchwood Station for the night, I pushed few more miles forward and completed one last climb before setting tent close to Twinlaw Mast. Tomorrow I planned to camp on top of the Bald Hill which would set me up nicely for the very muddy and slow going Longwood section ahead.

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