Te Araroa (day 73) - Twinlaw Mast to Hill 745 / mile 1816

Nice and easy day leading to a fairly difficult section tomorrow. My tent was soaking wet in the morning and got immediately drenched after I set it up in the evening.

Morning was sunny but the exterior of my MSR got soaked from condensation and dew, I had to hang it outside the backpack to dry. I went down from the Woodlaw hill and carried on walking along the last farmland on the TA. It turned out that previously closed Island Bush Track was opened again and I didn't have to detour around it, logging operations must have stopped few weeks ago. It saved me good 3 kilometres of walking.

I arrived at the Merriview Hut at midday and managed to get rid of rubbish as the private hut had a bin (extremely rare sight in NZ), after a lunch break I carried on into the dreaded Longwood Forest. My plan was to cut the distance to Colac Bay as much as possible, initially I planned to stop at Bald Hill, the mud on the ascent here was bad but it wasn't anything I haven't seen in the North Island. Forest was quite spacious in this section and it was easy to walk around the puddles.

I arrived at the Bald Hill at 4pm and decided to push few more miles, the next stretch was a gravel road and I had no excuse not to do it. I managed to climb one more hill called simply "Hill 745" it set me up nicely for the most muddy section before Martin's Hut tomorrow. I set up the tent just in time before it started to rain. The area was quite exposed, I hoped the wind won't be too strong, otherwise I could be in trouble.

Next 12 miles tomorrow would be probably "embrace the mud" kind of moment. Trying to work around it to not get dirty could be waste of time and energy, especially after the rain. One way or the other, the last Te Araroa special was awaiting for me in the morning.