Legs and Borders

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 anyt...

"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...

Today was a bit of a downer, nothing was particularly bad about it but there wasn't much good too. All my clothes were wet from last night, I put them on in the morning luckily it wasn't raining anymore. Then I packed the wet tent trying to keep it away from sleeping bag best I could. First task was to climb 959 m Mountain Pirongia, after yesterday's rain the trail was full of water so it didn't take long for my feet to get soaking wet again, rest of my clothes were steadily getting dryer though. It took four hours to get to the top, trail was overgrown and had few rock scrambling sections, DOC build a cool viewing point at the top of it, unfortunately it was quite foggy. Trail was passing next to Pahautea Hut, one of many huts Department Of Conservation build along Te Araroa. It was quite impressive, it had an emergency helicopter landing pad, separate toilet and shower facilities, many tent pitching spots with individual entrances and of course...

"Ultralight, cold at night" Didi, a hikers proverb (apparently) A crazy day of hiking! The trail was going through a rain forrest and the path was extremely muddy, sometimes up to a knee high, it took me 8 hours to go through 16 kilometres of it but it was well worth it, I've never walked through such a terrain, forest was extremely dense and surprisingly quiet, it rained for few hours but it didn't really influence the condition of the trail. At the end I couldn't even take my shoes off to wash them in the stream, I had to untie them and force it off my feet. I managed to reach Mangamuka just before the local convenience shop (or dairy as it's called by locals) has been shut at 5pm, bought a coke, peanut butter ice-cream and portion of chips and paid 10$ for a night at the local campground by the radio station. I've been joined by Miriam from Switzerland and not long after Didi and To...