Legs and Borders

Day two of walking along the Timber Trail. Today the path was mostly flat as it followed the route of the timber railway, there was a lot of rusting tracks and wheels scattered by the trail quite ab atmospheric detail. A couple of suspension bridges linked the path and it was a joy to bounce up and down while walking through them. This section was as immaculately maintained as the one yesterday. I set off early, the main bulk of cyclist caught up with me around 11am, everybody was going to the end of the trail 45km ahead. I didn't encounter anything worth mentioning during the walk other than perhaps two tiny wild pigs, I doubt they were of the 'micro' type, I was glancing around checking if their mother wasn't about to charge me. Both piglets vanished into the forest once I got too close. There was a lot of great information on the boards standing along the track, here are few about vermin control, hunting and...

It was a day of dead hedgehogs, enthusiastic cyclists, lessons about timber logging and meeting British people. Day started with a long road walk up to a trail, I saw three flattened hedgehogs along the highway, a sad sight especially as the road was very quiet. After two hours I reached the Timber Trail I would hike along for the next two days, it was a cycling trail so many TA hikers rented bikes to traverse it. The path, especially after hiking the neglected Managoakewa River Trail yesterday was immaculate, one of the best maintained walks I have ever seen. There was a lot of posts with information about the timber logging in the area and how in 1970s people started to protest against cutting native forests to preserve it. An absolute highlight of this section were three suspension bridges build by DOC along the way. Other than the bridges trail itself was build and maintained by volunteers! Thanks to the grading and accessibility of the path I wa...