Month: November 2019

Date: 17 November
Distance walked: GPS watch said 33km, Guthook says 37km, the Timber Trail signposts said 40km, honestly who really knows
Trail covered: kms 927.4 to 964.5
Weather: threatening to rain all day but it never did, until the evening when we were in our tents

At 7am it wasnt raining after all. So we ate breakfast fast and headed off before 8am. On the way out I noticed this sign which I didn’t notice initially. Whoops, I wasn’t boiling the water first!

The clouds were interesting but it felt like the rain would stay away.

Ok, so this is the start of the “Timber Trail” – an 84km long cycleway through forest.

I was feeling good about it until I saw this sign…

It’s okay, I thought. I’m sure this is nothing compared to the Tongariro Crossing next week.

Straight away I knew today was going to be something cool.

There are these signs every kilometer to tell you how far along the track you are.

Mostly it was through forests, but the landscape did occassionally change.

And there appeared to be a Te Araroa sign attached to every marker that was a multiple of 10.

This is the point where you can turn off to a side trail that goes to Pureora Summit. Alex said he heard it had amazing views, but given how cloudy it was today we didn’t bother. We just had food here instead.

The trees in the next bit were quite spooky, but I really liked them.

I think this tree that I spotted at 11am was my favourite of all.

Shortly after the elevation on my watch was reading the highest I had seen it so far.

However, if you believe this sign, my watch is way out because the highest point is right here and it is only 971m.

A bit more walking…

And I came across this which, according to the sign, is a view of Lake Taupo. I was surprised to see Lake Taupo off to the right hand side. I expected it to be on the left.

Somebody looks like they have carved two seats out of these tree stumps.

Alex walks fast when he goes uphill, so we didn’t see him again for a while. He also listens to music and it’s hard to get his attention while he’s walking. In fact today most of us were listening to music. That meant when cyclists want to get past us, it’s hard for them because we are in the way and we aren’t listening. I think some cyclists don’t like that. In fact, Ethan said that one of the cyclists rode up right behind him and actually touched the back of his pack with his front bike wheel.

This is the turnoff to Bog Inn Hut. It’s about 20km in and it’s one of the campsites recommended in the notes.

The Trail notes describe going through the Timber Trail in four days: Pureora -> Bog Inn Hut -> Piropiro Campsite -> Camp #10 -> Ongarue. But I’m with the American and Belgian guys and they want to do two long days, so I’m joining them for at least this long day. But that means skipping Bog Inn Hut.

I was actually happy because people have described it as “creepy”, “don’t stay here alone”, “full of rats”.

The trail is a cycleway so of course it has to be fit to be cycled, and that means it is generally well manicured. I think this bit here was the muddiest bit we encountered all day today:

We also knew that there were a few suspension bridges on the trail. This is the first one that you encounter and it is one of the more impressive ones.

It was long and wobbly and fun. But Ethan doesn’t like heights so the others had fun teasing him.

I felt okay walking across here but in the selfie I took, I look like I have a bit of hesitation. Although I think that comes from being scared about dropping the phone.

There was quite a gathering of cyclists at the other end. I think perhaps they were going to have lunch at this spot, but we snuck in first and took the seat.

One of the cyclists asked me as I was walking across the bridge “what sort of music do you like to listen to while you’re walking?” At first I thought it was an innocent question but the more I thought about it the more I thought it was a dig at me for wearing earphones while walking.

It was good to have some lunch. The cheese is getting a bit soft… but it still tastes fine, and I can’t even remember how long I’ve had it now.

Here’s another suspension bridge just a short distance later.

And here is a shelter made out of a big tree stump. It’s obviously not usable now, but apparently someone back in the day used it as a house when this was an active logging area.

We walked past the Timber Trail Lodge.

All day we knew it was coming, and we also knew that they do beer and pizza. And we wanted some of that. But is that only if you stay at the lodge? We weren’t sure. We would find out soon enough, but for now we had to walk past it to the campsite which was another km further down, and set up camp. It’s supposed to rain hard tonight and so we want our tents set up while it’s still nice.

Just before camp is a distance sign. Oh wow, the others are planning a 45km day tomorrow to Ongarue. I don’t think I’ll join them for that, especially given the bad weather forecast. But no time to worry about that now, beer and pizza await!

Although I hear a loud buzzing noise. I hope it’s not more motorcyclists like the ones at The Bluff Campsite on Day 2. They were so annoying, and they scared off the wild horses.

Arrived at camp to see Henry there, which was a nice surprise, I figured he would be ahead. Thankfully there were no motorcyclists (I think the noise was just flies), but there was a Swiss family of 4 who are walking, and there were two other tents there but their occupants weren’t anywhere to be seen.

Henry said he stayed at Bog Inn Hut and he really liked it, so I was sad I didn’t get to see it. Here’s pictures of it on the DOC website.

Yesterday I remember really wanting to get my boots and socks off all afternoon but today it was the pack. It really seemed to be weighing down on my shoulders today. I don’t know if some days I pack it differently to others, or what it is. In fact for the last few kilometers of the walk today it hurt to even raise my arms to take my earphones out of my ears. I was so glad to finally take it off.

Henry joined me and the other guys I was walking with and we went back to the Timber Trail Lodge. It was a nice place, we got there at 6pm and we had to order pizzas very quickly so that the guests that actually paid to be there could sit down for their fancier meals.

But we were allowed to drink as much as we wanted, they didn’t have any problem with us ordering drinks. Most of the guys got five beers each. I only got three, I thought that was definitely enough. And the pizza was good although a bit lacking on toppings.

Had a quick look outside before I left, but the rain hadn’t started yet. We were expecting to have to walk back to camp in the pouring rain.

There was the slowest Wi-Fi ever at the lodge, but it did enable me to check my emails. One thing I did learn was that there was an unfound geocache right where we were sitting at the end of the Bog Inn Creek Bridge! I was sad I didn’t know it was there one day earlier. I would have been first to find on my third geocache while walking. Oh well, it is what it is. I did actually find one other geocache today for the first time since Mt. Pirongia.

And my GPS watch was reading 32km while at the lodge, however the markers along the edge of the trail had reached 39. And Guthook said about 37. I can’t believe each of the measurement systems could be giving such ridiculously different readings. I’m getting so annoyed with the GPS watch way underreading that I think I’m going to stop reporting it after today and just use it for the red line on the map at the end of each blog post.

Got back to the camp and the rain was only just starting. I decided to sit in the campground shelter and write a blog post. When I finished that it was raining quite hard by this point and when I got back to the tent I realised i had closed the mesh tent door but left the tent fly door open. Uh-oh. My sleeping mat was quite wet but I dried most of the water off that with my little towel. There was a little pool of water in one corner of the tent which my iPod was very close to but luckily nothing important got wet. Note to self – close the tent fly door.

And for some reason my tent stinks. Its hard to describe what it smells like. Oh and somehow I got blood on my sleeping mat. So now the mat has mould on it at one end, blood in the middle, and rainwater at the other end. Lovely.

The weather is going to be bad overnight and probably tomorrow it seems. If it does rain hard tomorrow I had planned to spend tomorrow sitting in the lodge again waiting out the rain but I got the impression they wouldn’t like that. Oh well let’s see what happens. I really don’t fancy walking in the rain, like everyone else says they’re going to.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 18 November
Trail covered: 41.8km (kms 964.5 to 1006.3)
Weather: very wet

So like I decided yesterday, I am no longer going to report on the distance that the GPS watch says I walked, because it so wildly under-reads. I had originally started including this because I wanted it to include any extra that I walked, like to and from accommodation or dinner, or things like that. But it just hasn’t been working out. So instead I will report how far Guthook says we have walked, by taking the difference between the two km markers.

Overnight I had a strange dream. I dreamed that I was at home and I was about to go back out to continue walking the TA after taking a break, but Mum got very emotional at the thought of me leaving. I woke up genuinely thinking that I was still at home, and I was surprised to find myself in my tent. Must’ve been the beers last night!

This morning I saw two new faces at the shelter table – the occupants of the two extra tents from last night – they were Abby and Jason and they are doing Walk for non-violence from Cape Reinga to Wellington. It’s surprising that there aren’t more people out there using the walk as a reason to raise money. Abby also said they were doing the walk to get fit and also have some fun too. I thought that was nice.

While I’m giving out links, here’s Alex and Ethan’s blog. It’s great and well worth a read, they go into as much detail as I do. I have linked to the day where I first met them!

Okay, time for a quick check of the weather. Wow, no visible rain yet.

I had a look down to the other end of the camp. Last night, Alex had set up camp at the other end of the campsite from where I had set up next to Henry. That was because he didn’t know Henry or any of the other walkers at first, and he wanted to use the shelter at the other end.

I woke up at 6am which is becoming a regular occurence. Since there was no rain, I thought I would walk after all as there is no rain to wait out. I’m sure there will be rain at some point but at least I’m not starting out in it.

I had some breakfast, and before long the other five showed up and were waiting for me.

Here is our day today. 42.7km to Ongarue. I might go that far, or I might not, I’m not sure, but the rest are. There is a campsite halfway which I could stop at… although if I end up getting rained on then I’ll probably want to keep going so that I dry out. If you’re wet, then walk until you become dry – that’s what Rhydian kept saying.

There is also a place on the sign called “Mystery Creek” apparently – must be different from the Mystery Creek near Hamilton.

Then there was this sign – “Next exit Ongarue 42km”. Wow, I guess that means no road crossings and no way in or out if something happens to you halfway in. Scary!

There were more cyclists on the trail today. I always tried to keep left for them but that wasn’t always possible.

My pack started hurting early on today. I think even after 3km I noticed it. That doesn’t bode well for doing a 42km day walk today. Looks like I might be camping halfway along the way somewhere.

Here’s the Maramataha Bridge. It’s the longest and tallest of the suspension bridges on the trail and it was awesome.

It took a while to get across and because it was so long it was also very wobbly.

I know this photo won’t do justice to how high up we were but I’ll post it anyway.

Peter clearly wasn’t afraid of heights.

I put my rain jacket on at this point because it was getting a bit gloomy.

But like usual, I walked with it on for 3 or 4 minutes and then I felt too hot and sweaty so I took it off again.

Signs along the way suggested that we would now be following an old railway line for the rest of the way. Excellent – that means there should be no steep ascents or descents today!

Here is one such piece of information that we were told on the way about the train – here is the bit where they did a three-point turn.

We had “lunch 1” here. Quite often we also have “lunch 2” and even “lunch 3”. My 11am picture is Alex and Ethan packing up, and Peter in the distance already heading off.

All along the trail were fairly large holes dug out in this shape. I wondered what they were for, and someone in the group suggested that’s where the rain collects after it rains so as not to flood the path.

The path started to look a bit more like wetlands…

And there was some old “junk” lying on the side of the path. Remnants of an earlier time perhaps? Or has somebody cycled all the way here to dump their old rubbish?

As it started to rain a bit, Peter went into this shelter to wait for his brother who again was limping a bit. This was the first shelter with an actual door on it – it was very cosy.

Here’s another piece of train history, the jigger turntable. A jigger is apparently any vehicle adapted for train tracks by adding wheels.

These little information signs were everywhere on the trail. I didn’t read many of them as there wasn’t time with the big days but I did like this one.

It was about 12:45pm when the heavens opened and the rain poured down. I figured it probably would at some point but I hoped it would be after I’d made it to the campsite that was halfway.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t put my rain jacket back on. Perhaps it was because I thought the rain might be short-lived, but either way, it was a silly idea. The rain went on for hours – at least three hours. I just had on my tshirt and shorts like I always do and these quickly got saturated. “If you’re wet, walk until you’re dry” wasn’t going to cut it this time.

So I just kept walking and walking through the rain. With any luck the rain would stop before Ongarue and I’d dry out walking the last bit. I just powered on and didn’t slow down too much because that would make me cold.

But then the wind started too. That made it even colder. I haven’t yet worn the gloves that I brought and this would have been the perfect time as my hands were freezing. But they were way down in my pack and no way was I going to try and find them in the pouring rain. I’ll just have to live with it for now.

I’m annoyed because I knew what the forecast was. I should have been more organised. My hands were too cold to take too many pictures. I did manage a couple though.

And this one of a large Totara tree.

I passed the halfway campsite and there was a small shelter. Abby and Jason were in there. I decided to press on as stopping would make me get even colder and there wasn’t enough space in the small shelter to dry off and change clothes. I knew there was another shelter at marker 73 or 74 and that gave me something to look forward to. So as I was walking along, I just kept counting the numbers and looking forward to the next one each time.

There were actually quite a lot of places you could pitch tents along the way, and some of them even had toilets. So I’m not sure why the trail notes insist that you should use the four campsites that are explicitly mentioned in the notes.

I kept myself in a good mood by thinking back to other good times on the trail, and imagining myself in warmer places like on the beach. I told myself that would be me as soon as I was at the shelter. It gave me the power to keep going.

I also saw the first animal I’d seen anywhere on the entire Timber Trail – a small goat.

I got excited when the shelter was getting closer… and then suddenly, there it was! What a sight for sore eyes!

I could finally go in, pull out my towel, dry off and change into my thermals and my other shirt which was dry. And unpack all my stuff and distribute it all over the shelter. It felt so good.

Like always though, of course I’m unable to change my boots, so I have to put wet boots on again. I was sure this morning that I had dry socks and boots for a few hours. Maybe it never happened and it was all another strange dream.

The others turned up 10 minutes after I got there. They had “lunch 2” but then continued on in the rain. But there was no way in hell I was leaving this shelter until I was 100% certain the rain had stopped. Even if that meant waiting all night.

Fortunately I only had to wait half an hour, and the rain stopped. I waited another 15 minutes to make sure it didn’t start again, and set off on the final 8km to the campsite at Ongarue.

This tunnel was early on and was quite freaky. I had to turn on my phone’s torch.

Then there was the Ongarue Spiral – a section of railroad that loops around in a circle and over itself, although of course it was now the trail. The shelter was just before here, at the top of the bridge up there and the others were disappointed in the spiral. I think they thought it was going to be some kind of loop-de-loop like a rollercoaster, or at least some kind of tight spiral walkway downwards around a tree.

It’s true though, it wasn’t that exciting!

Coming up were a few rock falls. Here is one such rock fall:

And there must be more coming, because of this sign.

One problem though. I was at km 999.5 and that meant the 1000 km mark was coming up soon. So Mr. Yellowsign there can say No Stopping all he wants – Im stopping to mark the 1000km point no matter what!

Despite being largely dry now, I still was very keen to get to the campsite and the others had gone ahead and so weren’t with me to celebrate this momentous occasion. So I just drew 1000 in the ground quickly.

And did a thumbs-up.

After this the trail changed back to farmland:

And then logging operations, which wasn’t as beautiful:

I kept putting one foot in front of the other, and watching the km marker numbers. There were markers back on Raetea Mountain back on Day 6, numbered 1 to 18. Each time you passed one of those, you would be so excited because it was such hard going and you were moving at approximately 1km/hr. On this trail, however, the markers largely passed without excitement, except when you got near the end.

Got a glimpse of the campsite through a gap in the trees.

But first, a chance to reflect on how far we had all come in two days. Pureora was 82km behind us, and apparently 28 hours – however we managed it in 16 or 17 hours. We had now completed the Timber Trail!

I really didn’t think I would manage a second long day today, and I was feeling good too. The pack was hurting early on but then after a while I just didn’t notice it. I don’t know if it was anything to do with the rain but for the first time in a while nothing was hurting.

There’s the free camp and shelter. It’s also the car park for people wanting to start the Timber Trail from this end. Although in saying that, I didnt see one single person walking or cycling northbound, which I found odd.

I was last to arrive this time. Henry, Alex, Ethan, Peter, Charlie, Abby and Jason were all there. And not long after, a French couple turned up in a kitted out van. Charlie went to talk to this couple to see if he could hitchhike with them to Taumarunui tomorrow, because he was hurting again. But apparently they were not going that way.

Tonight I really hoped to book accomodation for tomorrow so that I could simply walk into Taumarunui tomorrow without thinking too hard. There was already enough to plan tomorrow (namely the Tongariro Crossing and Whanganui River journey) to worry about accommodation as well.

However there had been hardly any phone signal for the last few days. There was a tiny bit of phone signal here – every now and again a notification of some kind would come through on the phone. But it wasn’t enough to load a web page or do anything like book accommodation. Oh well, I guess it will just have to wait.

There were “mobile phone reception” signs along the start and end of the trail (none in the middle) but I was so wet and cold that I didn’t stop at any of them. If it hadn’t been for the rain then I would have sorted something at one of these spots. Ethan did exactly that, stopped at one of these mobile phone reception spots and booked a room at a motel somewhere. Apparently they were full now.

With AirBNB you can always be sure of finding last minute accomodation in a big city, but in a town it might not be so easy. It’s alright. All I am looking forward to is washing and drying all my clothes which are mostly now wet through. Speaking of which, my Torpedo7 “waterproof” pack cover doesn’t seem to be very waterproof – the stuff in the top of my pack got quite wet. I wonder if it really did anything at all.

The other guys may get away from me soon. I think they will want to do the Tongariro Crossing and Whanganui River canoeing faster than me, whereas I want to take my time and have a bit of leeway in case the weather on Tongariro is bad. Although I would like to join them because they push me to go harder than I otherwise would, and it would be nice to be on the river with people I know, instead of being paired up with a random group of people that I don’t know. Something else to worry about tomorrow.

I got into my tent. Yep something definitely smells in the tent. I can’t work out what it is. Nothing smells when I smell everything individually. It kind of smells like an infected wound, but I don’t have any of those. Not that I know of anyway!

And I hear snoring again. There was snoring last night too, but with the different arrangement of tents tonight it must be someone different. I can’t tell who it is! I’m really going to struggle in the South Island where most of the sleeping is done in huts and I will be in much closer proximity to people!

It’s all good though. I was warm and dry and in my tent and didn’t have to start early tomorrow if I didn’t feel like it. Hooray.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 19 November
Trail covered: 26.8km (kms 1006.3 to 1033.1)
Weather: overcast, but no rain

Here’s the campsite this morning.

It was so cold. It was cold during the night too. I was wearing my thermals in the sleeping bag. I had set up my tent under a big tree too, which was a mistake. Big raindrops were hitting the tent overnight and they were quite loud.

After a breakfast of porridge, I set off. I’d never set off wearing my jacket and thermals before. Everything I have is cold and wet from yesterday and nothing dried overnight despite everyone hanging their clothes up in the shelter. I still had one last pair of dry socks, and that was about it. Of course the boots were wet so they didn’t make any difference.

As I was walking, I thought to myself “do I really want to do this? Subject myself to this for another 3 months?”

Yes, I do want to keep going. Not every day is this bad, and tonight I will have a motel room with a bed and washing machine and hopefully dryer. That will be sweet.

Ok now that that thought is out of the way, I can focus on trying to get accommodation. After 1km or so, there was a good enough phone signal to search for a place to stay. There was nothing around on AirBNB, and not a lot of motels showed up when I searched for 2 nights, but searching for just tonight I found a room at the Alexander Spa Motel which sounds fancy but didn’t have great reviews. It was right in the middle of town though and it had a laundry so how bad could it be?

Great, now that’s done I can look at the scenery. Walking along here, I noticed bulls on the left and a train coming through on the right.

When I got closer to the bull, it had a real look on its face, like “I’m the boss here, and you know it, and so I dont need to show any expression”.

There were calves along with the cows in this paddock.

And I thought this calf peeking out from under its mother was very cute.

And this cute little sheep, who didn’t seem to care about me.

Despite all the cute animals, I was tiring quite fast. There was a comment on Guthook that suggested that after 15km of walking today, I would be at a cafe. The cafe is apparently only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays – lucky for me today is Tuesday. But does it exist? On this gravel road, I simply can’t imagine there being any shop here.

At 14km, there was a road over the river that joined with the nearby State Highway 4, and the road became sealed. There were still very few houses… but there was indeed a cafe!

It had some cute outside tables – at least one table for everyone that must live in this small settlement.

The place is called Taane’s Manor.

They have a very small menu, and the coffee comes from a push-button machine. But it was okay for a machine coffee. And their toasted sandwiches were pretty good.

At 11am I had just left the cafe and was walking through the small settlement of Okahukura where the cafe was.

I still couldn’t work out why such a tiny place had a cafe. But I’m glad it did.

This tiny place also had a loud barking dog run out onto the road at me. I stopped and waited, because I saw the owner running out of the house coming to get it. I was annoyed at first, but once the dog came right up to me it actually turned really friendly, thankfully.

The rest of the trip was still more road walking. In fact it was road walking all day. I passed one field of sheep making a hell of a noise. I tried to record it on video – I wonder if you can hear them on this YouTube clip.

There was cotton all over the road and when a car drove through it it would all blow up in the air and cover me.

And here is a digger driving down the railway lines. It has wheels attached to the bottom. Does that mean this is an example of a “jigger” that I learned about yesterday on the Timber Trail?

Coming into Taumarunui, I found this fairly badly drawn piece of kiwiana.

Oooh and now a dairy. Time for a milkshake. I thought about walking three more kilometers to go McDonalds instead, but nope, milkshake time.

It was one of the best milkshakes I’d had for a while. Lots of icecream, cold, and the right amount of flavour.

A bit longer and I was in Taumarunui. I saw that the state highways now have 4 at the beginning of the number. People may notice that the initial digit of the state highway numbers in NZ increases as you go down the country. When I get to the “5” highways I’ll know I’m just out of Palmerston North and when I see the “6” highways, I’ll know I’m in the South Island.

While I was walking, I had a think about the river section coming up, and I decided it would be cool to join Alex and Ethan even though they might go a bit faster than I’d like. Problem is, I didn’t know how to get hold of them. My plan was to go to their hotel and see if I could find them…. but one slight problem. The milkshake from before had made me need the bathroom – quite desperately!

So I continued through the town to the public toilet (no dramas there luckily). And after that, nearby I saw two unshaven people with all their wet clothes draped across a park bench. They had to be hikers, so I went over and talked to them. They were indeed – their names were Dmitry and Antoine. Rhydian had talked about them and I had seen their names in the various visitors books, but never met them before now.

And after talking to them for a few minutes, two more hikers turned up. They were Pascal, who I last saw on Day 5 at Ahipara, and Olivia, who I last saw on Day 26 at Marsden Point. I felt bad because I didn’t recognize either of them at first… it had been a long time, and Pascal’s hair had grown a fair bit.

Pascal and Olivia are far ahead but had to come back to do the Tongariro Crossing because of bad weather, and the other two are starting the river journey from here, so I won’t see them again for a while, most likely.

Interestingly Pascal said that he has already done the Whanganui River section and he said that he thought 5 days on the river was unnecessary. He said he wished he did it in 3 or 4 days because he was often bored in the campsites at the end of the day.

So now I know of at least 11 hikers in this town today. The four I met in the main street, plus Alex and Ethan, Peter and Charlie, Henry, me, and a Swiss lady who was also staying at my motel, but who was taking extended rest because of a suspected stress fracture. I didn’t talk to her but the manager told me about her. I hope she recovers!

After this I decided to go and check in to my motel room before trying to find Ethan and Alex. I put everything into the wash… but one problem – all I had to wear while my stuff was in the washing machine was my down jacket and my rain pants. I can’t be wearing those around all day. So I raced down to the SPCA opportunity shop to find a cheap second-hand shirt.

The shop closed at 2pm and it was 2:04pm. Oh no! The door was locked, but people were inside and they let me in to buy a shirt.

I went back to the motel room to try on the shirt. Snug – but for only $2 I like it!!

I’m going to keep this shirt until at least the end of the Whanganui River. All the rain recently has shown me that having one extra dry shirt is not a bad thing.

Ethan actually got hold of me on Instagram shortly after getting my shirt, so that was good – I didn’t have to go and find him. I told him I wanted to join his group and he said he’d do some orgaising and get in touch soon.

To kill some time I went out and walked a bit more of the trail, starting with the public toilets which is as far as I got before. I saw this large bird.

This part of the trail goes down the main street, but then turns right and then does a dogleg and heads back in the direction it came from. Just before I got to this bit, I saw a bunch of high school students who obviously saw me – how could you not, I was wearing a bright red shirt, rain pants, and yellow crocs. When I did the dogleg turn, I ended up seeing the students again. So that they didn’t think I was stalking them, I spent some time looking at this memorial to people who died in World War I.

I saw the students go down a side street, so I continued on. But once I’d walked as far as I could without crossing the river, I had to walk back to my hotel, and I saw them again! I bet they definitely thought I was weird.

On the way back, I saw this ambulance display:

And I also really liked these barriers. It looks like the barriers are really enjoying each other.

I grabbed myself a Thai takeaway – spicy noodles with Chicken – and went back to the motel to eat it.

So far I really can’t fault the motel. The manager was very helpful when I turned up, showed me around where everything was and even gave me free laundry detergent. The Wi-Fi was really fast, but unfortunately it stopped working at about 8pm and I had to switch back to my mobile data. That happens in a lot of motels though.

I never heard back from Ethan, but I know he was really tired and I know he’s spending another day in Taumarunui so I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I don’t have accommodation booked after today so I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. I’d like a rest day, to be honest.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 20 November

I realised soon that today would be a rest day in Taumarunui. I knew that today we had to organise the Whanganui River section of the trail today. Well, I say “we” – actually, Alex and Ethan have done all the organising. I’ve just tagged along, as have Charlie and Peter. For that I’m eternally grateful!

I woke to a message from Ethan about the river journey. He’d originally said that they wanted to take their time to allow for a bit of leeway in case of bad weather. But this was the message:

Ooh, not only is that a punishing schedule, but there’s no leeway at all – today being Wednesday and all! However, I’ve liked travelling with this group because they go at a good pace and so far I’ve been able to keep up with them. And so I checked the weather forecast – this is what I saw:

Wow, that’s a fantastic forecast. And they convinced me that 38km days are actually possible on those sections. Okay, I’m in. We have the canoe hire company coming to pick up our food at 3:30pm and they will take us to their office to do a safety briefing. I hope I feel less nervous after the safety briefing. Apparently I have a kayak and not a canoe, which I’m less nervous about, because I’ve kayaked before but never been in a canoe.

We can take heavier food on the river journey because it goes in the waterproof barrels in the canoes, and doesn’t have to be carried. The boys are already talking about many cases of beer. For some reason I just feel like taking pies and Bayleys. Not sure where that craving comes from.

I packed up my stuff in preparation for checking out of the motel, and Taco Terry watched on.

While I was packing up, I had “Steamy Windows” by Tina Turner in my head. I have no idea how that song got in my head. And I only know those two words of the song. “Steamy Windows Brrrrrrrrgh! Something something something something”. I put it on Spotify to play it then had other music on while I finished packing up.

If I wanted to spend another day in this motel I’d have to change rooms which would be annoying, and the Forgotten World Motel is right opposite the New World and was $30 cheaper so I moved to there. And amazingly, they had my room ready at 10:15am when I arrived. Excellent!

I did one quick journey to New World to get my food for the next 5 days walking, and I’ll go back again in the afternoon to get the river journey food separately. I don’t normally take an 11am picture on a rest day but the alarm on my phone went to remind me and I thought “why the hell not”.

Then I had an early lunch at The Bakehouse Cafe. I always love The Bakehouse, their simple food appeals to my simple nature.

Saw this guy on the way back to the motel. Do you think that the owner got the rights to use Sideshow Bob’s likeness on the side of his van?

I’ve worked out that what must be stinking out my tent are a combination of my sleeping mat, which has all number of fluids on it and also inside it, and my stinky feet which got quite cut up after walking in all the rain. I don’t think there’s much I can do about the sleeping mat – I should have taken better care of it from the start. Hopefully some dry weather will take care of my feet. And just as I was typing this, an ad for some kind of foot care device came on TV. Gee, it’s not only Facebook that knows everything about you these days, it’s also regular TV!

I went to do some shopping in the afternoon. The weather is beautiful now and it’s supposed to stay this way.

Here are my purchases. Firstly, alcohol for the river ride. The canoe trip is a great chance to take alcohol since it doesn’t have to be carried. I have Jack Daniels and Coke, and I was going to get Baileys, until I saw that was $45 and this Irish cream was only $16, so that won out.

Secondly, a dry sack so that I can take a couple of things on the canoe without worrying they will get wet. And thirdly some freeze dried meals and smoothies.

And then here is all the food I’m taking on the river, plus a couple of other things I will buy from National Park, like cheese. I got my pie… I hope it survives the journey and doesn’t get crushed!

Saw Rhydian at New World. He said he is going to canoe from here in Taumarunui in a couple of days, and skip the Tongariro Crossing because he has already done it before. That might mean he is on the river with the rest of us once he reaches Whakahoro, which is where we are launching from.

Time to go to the canoe hire place. Here, we had to put all our food for the trip into waterproof barrels. It was a bit of a squeeze.

All ready to go for Tuesday.

Next was the safety briefing. Here we learned about all sorts of things that were a bit scary for me… like don’t lean away from obstacles if you’re about to hit them in case the underside of the canoe hits them and breaks the canoe in half, and ensure you avoid the Eddy and hit the V. Whatever that means.

So this is apparently what we’re doing, if this makes any sense.

While we were sitting around waiting for our transport, we were playing with the dogs…

And Alex noticed this power outlet which we all thought was a bit, shall we say, “inconvenient”.

It’s good to finally have a plan for the river section and to know that there’s nothing more that needs to be planned. Now there is just the formality of actually doing it. That’s the scary bit.

What it does mean is that we’re going to be doing the Tongariro Crossing on a Saturday… so there will be a lot of crowds. And apparently tourists do the crossing northbound, whereas we’re going southbound, so we’re going against the tide. We’re going to be starting early because of that, and also because of the big day planned for that day! Good news though is that it sounds like Henry will be doing the crossing on the same day.

I feel like now is a good time to do another “Wellington by Christmas” goal check. There are now 31 days until 21 December (day 87) and 661.9km to go. That means I need to do 21.4km per day. Ten days ago it was 22.5km per day so I’m ahead of schedule. And we have ten or so days coming up where every day is a fair bit longer than that.

If I can do 25.5km per day then I’ll be there by 16th of December (day 82), and if I can do 30km per day I’ll be there by 12th of December (day 78). What a difference a few extra km per day can make. Although there are the Tararua Ranges to contend with in a couple of weeks’ time.

Tonight I had a quick dinner consisting of an entire Apricot Chicken pizza at the place in this photo, right beside where I’m staying. All five of us had pizza here – there were two “BBQ Hawaiian” pizzas, a “Chicken and Feta” pizza and a “Garlic and Cheese”.

And this “supa sundae” from McDonald’s for dessert.

And now it’s time to rest in preparation for walking again tomorrow. Gee, with all this talk of the river journey today, I almost forgot that walking is why we’re all here. Tomorrow is not an early start because it is not a difficult day. It’s off to the big metropolis of Owhango.

Date: 21 November
Trail covered: 27.9km (kms 1033.1 to 1061.0)
Weather: beautiful

It is amazing how much different you feel after a reset – when you get to have a proper  rest, and everything gets washed and dried, you sleep well in a bed, and then when you start out again, you almost feel like you’re starting over again. It’s almost as if the rainmageddon of Day 54 never happened. The rainpocalypse. The rainnihilation. The rainatastrophe. You know what I mean. The wet stuff that falls from the sky and makes you wonder what in God’s name you’re doing outside in such evil weather.

None of that today. There isn’t a cloud in the sky this morning.

Breakfast first. I walked down to Izzy’s Cafe, which is the same place as the Thai restaurant from two days ago. Cafe by day, Thai by night. Although they should stick to Thai. I got bacon and eggs and coffee. The eggs were done well, but the white toast was more butter than toast, the bacon was cheap bits instead of the good stuff, and the coffee tasted like rainwater.

Feeling totally unsatisfied I went to the bakery on the way back. As I got there, this vehicle pulled up and the driver also went to the bakery.

I lived in a semi-rural town for half my life and never did I see a farm vehicle of this size simply pull up outside the shop so the driver could get a pie. How Kiwi is that.

Back at the motel I packed up all my stuff, and then I realised I didn’t keep my socks out… and where were they? Right at the bottom of the pack, of course. So everything comes out of the pack. And I get my socks out, then it’s all packed up again. And then I realise I left my cheese in the fridge. Dagnabbit. Everything gets unpacked again.

I also spent a little bit of the morning stressing that my cans of Jack Daniels and Cola that I put into the waterproof barrels at the canoe hire yesterday will be making the other things mouldy as they were slightly wet. Oh well, at least most other things inside the barrel are sealed if that happens.

Met Ethan, Alex and Peter at McDonald’s. I didn’t get anything, I thought about it, but they were clearly very understaffed today. Here is Ethan waiting over 15 minutes just for one hot chocolate.

Ethan and Alex had to go to the post office to post their “bounce box” forward. A bounce box is a box that overseas hikers use that contains all your stuff that you brought to New Zealand and aren’t taking on the trail. It could also be used by anyone to buy multiple pairs of shoes or other things in advance and post them to various points ahead of time. So while they did that, Peter and I went to BP next door, as he needed some new sunglasses.

We walked down to the post office to meet the others and on the way Charlie turned up. He said this is the last day he will be hitching because his pain has mostly gone away, but also there aren’t any more road sections for a while after today. He was all ready with his hitchhiking sign.

Inside the post office there was a bit of a dilemma. NZ Post have a thing called Poste Restante where you can send things to a post office and they’ll hold it for you. Apparently in the last two days, Whanganui and Palmerston North stopped providing this service. And Wellington is too far for the box to go. So some frantic last-minute calls and Ethan has arranged to send the box to the Whanganui Top 10 Holiday Park which is the terminus of the river journey. Crisis averted.

There was one last thing to do before setting out. I’ve done the safety briefing for the Whanganui River but not the safety briefing for the Tongariro Crossing. Luckily I passed that with flying colours.

Just kidding. That was just me messing around in the kids playground across the road while waiting for the others to hurry the hell up. Charlie had started hitching 15 minutes ago. I bet he is in Owhango already and we haven’t even left Taumarunui yet.

On the way out of town we got our first glimpse of the Whanganui River that we would be canoeing on from Tuesday.

Doesn’t look like we need to worry about it being flooded any time soon, although a lot can change in five days.

Here’s my 11am picture, these houses on the outskirts of Taumarunui:

We passed this on the road. Someone said that this was pure Mario Kart.

Suddenly I had a craving for a G&T Brownie, despite that being an extremely weird combination.

We also passed Taumarunui Canoe Hire after a few kilometers. This is the place we were driven to yesterday for the safety briefing and to sort the paperwork.

A bit further on I walked around one corner and said loudly “look at that!!!!!”

I’ve seen these mountains many times before but not recently. I got a real shock seeing them because I wasn’t expecting it yet. The Americans stopped to take a bunch of pictures. Peter was well ahead at this point but he can’t have missed them. Of course the photo here doesn’t do them justice. They’re so big and impressive.

We passed this and tried to work out if we were somehow back in Rangiriri. And also we tried to work out exactly what type of animals this place is selling.

Ethan didn’t like getting too close to this guy:

And we saw our last glimpse of the Whanganui River until we launch the canoes onto it.

A bit more cotton on the road…

And the road turned to a gravel road.

I fell behind as I needed to pee and have a muesli bar. The Americans aren’t stopping for lunch today, which is odd.

I tried to catch up and did eventually manage it, although Alex really was Speedy Gonzales today and none of the rest of us could keep up with him. Ethan and Peter and I did have a quick lunch on the side of the road.

I was looking forward to my Rocky Road Bites I bought but when I opened them not only had they partially melted already but they were dark chocolate. Eww. I’ll eat dark chocolate if I have to but definitely not my first choice.

So I got out my protein bar, and that was dark chocolate too! Grrrr. I’ve got to start reading labels. And Peter then pulled out his Green & Blacks branded 85% cocoa extremely dark chocolate. Apparently some people do like it.

Continuing on… about 9km to go now. Passed a bull that was big and scary:

And this fence that was useless:

And this ground that had fallen away:

It wasn’t until near the end of the day that we got to see the mountains again. And we figured what a great view this house must have:

The road walking was getting a bit old by this point.

My pack wasn’t hurting my back too much today which was a surprise, especially after buying five days worth of food. I thought I needed to buy that much food because I thought there was no more real shop between here and the river… although I later learned that the town of National Park has a Four Square supermarket. Oops. I don’t remember that being there when I drove through last.

Here is a sign we passed. Whakahoro is 43km away and is where we launch canoes from but it takes five days to get there because Te Araroa takes such a ridiculous detour so it can include the Tongariro Crossing. But I’m glad it does, the crossing is probably the bit I’m looking forward to seeing the most, other than the North Island finish line and Bluff of course!

We arrived at Owhango and saw quickly the Owhango Hotel. Oh how I’d love a beer.

Charlie had already been in town six hours because he hitched, and said that the hotel only opens on Fridays. Well doesn’t that just rip your nightie. No beer for me. Okay fine, Owhango I know has a cafe, because I’ve driven through here before and also Charlie said he spent most of the day there. But it’s 4pm… is there any chance it will be open? The others continued on to the campsite but I left them and went to see.

Since it was closed I went across the road and took a photo with this sign.

This means the GPS should be reading S39° 00.000 however my GPS was reading S38° 59.775. In other words, about 200 or 300 meters north of where it thinks the actual line is. Weird. Why put a sign like that in if it’s not accurate.

While I was contemplating this, a hiker called Ellen walked past, coming south on the main road from Taumarunui. Hmmm, she sure looks like a TA hiker, but I’ve never seen her before. She said she walks sections of the TA but she’s not strict about the route. She is doing the 42 Traverse tomorrow like we are but it will take her two days whereas we are doing it in one. And then she will do a much longer version of the Tongariro Crossing which includes something called the Northern Circuit. Apparently this takes quite a few days.

By coincidence she is staying at the hotel, which was supposed to be closed. But we walked together around the back of the hotel and found the owner. He let us inside and I could buy a beer after all. Freaken A.

After that I continued on to the campsite.

Unsurprisingly, everyone else had already set up. No rush for me though, it was only 5:30 so still three more hours of daylight. Excellent.

It’s a nice spot by the Whakapapa River.

The trail continues over the bridge tomorrow and onto the 42 Traverse.

After a dinner we played some cards. I was Ethan’s partner in two games of Euchre against Charlie and Peter. We absolutely annihilated them both games. I think we may have been a but lucky with the cards though. Speaking of luck, look at this:

And this:

That’s phenomenal. Talk about lucky. Surely a forecast like this can’t be completely wrong.

Everyone else was in bed by 8.15. Apparently people are sore and tired from the shining sun all day. Yet I feel excellent, I’m not tired at all and still full of energy. Given that I’m at least 10 years older than all the rest of the members of the group, I have to say I feel pretty good about that.

I went for a walk across the bridge to see the view from the other side.

And managed to type up today’s blog post since everyone else went to bed so early.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 22 November
Trail covered: 35.6km (kms 1061.0 to 1096.6)
Weather: hot

This morning we woke up to some of the worst condensation that has hit us so far. We all had tent flys that were completely saturated. I guess given the cold night and the crystal clear skies we shouldn’t be surprised! Luckily the sun came up and then they dried quite fast.

For various reasons which aren’t trail related I stayed back at camp about 45 minutes later than everyone else. So I got to watch them depart without me.

I saw Ellen from yesterday also go past. We had a quick chat but then she was on her way.

Today we were following something called the 42 Traverse. It’s a cycleway, kind of like the Timber Trail, but much hillier and paved with gravel instead of dirt. I saw the elevation profile yesterday at the start but here it was from a few kilometers in.

I was surprised by this, I thought we were following the whole 42 Traverse, but Guthook says that we only get up to 790m whereas the sign there says the high point is 910m. And I also don’t think we come out at State Highway 47 where it says. Oh well, time will tell I’m sure.

The scenery on this trail was less exciting than the Timber Trail, although there were a couple of nice points.

I also noticed this sign – “2500 kg maximum weight”. If you got to this point, and your vehicle was 2501kg, what would you do? There’s nowhere to turn around! I guess you’d be reversing all the way back up the 42 Traverse!

I passed Ellen quite early on as she is taking two days to do this section, so I probably won’t see her again. I also caught up to Charlie and Ethan surprisingly fast given that I didn’t leave until 8:45am and they left just before 8. They had a very early “lunch 1” apparently (or was it “breakfast 2”?) I found them negotiating the first water crossing.

We stopped at this intersection and had a bit of lunch.

It was 11am and I just felt like something a bit different. What do you think of my lunch concoction?

Off walking again…

And Alex spied a river. We thought maybe it was the Whakapapa River which was the river we camped beside last night but after looking at the map we noticed it was in fact the Whanganui River. I thought yesterday was the last time we would see it.

The hills on this trail weren’t too bad, but they do get worse the longer the trail goes. At the second-to-last of the big hills, suddenly these beauties came into view again:

I even looked for a geocache at this spot… but came up empty-handed. I’m not sure but I think that’s the first time this whole trip I have looked for a geocache and not found it.

Then we saw this sign.

Ah, that explains the elevation and destination mismatches with the end of the 42 Traverse. We actually take this side trail – the “Waione Cokers Track”. I was enjoying the fact that the 42 Traverse was so well groomed but a bit of variety might be nice.

But 2 hours and 45 minutes for 12km? Up a steep hill? Is that right? Is that for cyclists or walkers? Let’s time it and find out. I got here at 1:45pm.

It started off okay…

But there were a couple of big water crossings. At this point here we weren’t even sure we were going the right way.

Until we saw Charlie just hanging out in the middle of the river.

Then there were some big rutted 4WD tracks. This side trail is also supposed to be a cycleway. How any cycles get up here I’ve got no idea.

And some big muddy pools. Lots of big muddy pools.

And this whole time the track was going up – up and up and up. It was quite exhausting and when I was nearing the top where the majority of the big muddy pools were, I was getting a bit over the day again. And when I finally thought I was out on the road, there was one more giant muddy pool to contend with.

Some of the muddy pools were not passable without going in them, or at least not without some clever acrobatics which I wasn’t willing to perform, so there were a couple of times I switched my hiking boots for my crocs and back again. I was in my crocs for the big water crossings and also the big muddy pools that didn’t have an available detour. Since my boots and socks are dry I really don’t want to get them wet again right now. Changing shoes regularly did take a bit of time, but I had plenty.

Ethan received a text at one point saying that the holiday park we were staying at had a store. Ooh I really hope I can get an icecream there. Surely I can. That gave me the drive to keep going.

We came out onto a road called “Access Road No. 3”. Imaginative. At this point it was 4:48pm. It had taken just over 3 hours from the 2 hours 45 sign. Damn you sign, you beat us.

And then a little side track to the left, which Ethan and Charlie both overshot and I just blindly followed them. You’re looking for a kind of a driveway with all these yellow flowers.

The mountains were getting closer. That was getting me excited for tomorrow when we are all doing the Tongariro Crossing.

We got to something called “Mahaukura – the upper redoubt”. I thought it was funny that the main subject of the story here was “Te Kooti”, just a few days after I noticed how Ethan kept calling Te Kuiti “takooty” and then there is actually a Maori guy called Te Kooti.

At least the last bit of the walkway today is through the easy grass of the redoubt.

Then a left turn onto State Highway 47 and a short walk down it, and I could see the Tongariro Holiday Park coming up on the right. Finally… at last.

I struggled to find the office to this place, I’m not sure why, as it was right by the entrance as you’d expect it to be. Must have just been a day of exhaustion. There were a lot of hills and a fair few challenging sections of track so I was definitely feeling it when I arrived.

I didn’t get an ice cream from the store – they had an incredibly small selection of stuff – but I did get a Bundaburg Lemon, Lime & Bitters and a Mars Bar. They were pretty good, as you’d expect.

Alex and Peter had oranised a cabin in the holiday park because with 5 of us it was only slightly more expensive than a campsite and not having to pack up a tent in the morning would assist with starting early.

Charlie had taken a wrong turn late in the day and Peter had gone looking for him. Here they are, finally making their way into camp, and they had picked up Henry along the way as well.

There was only time for a quick chat and a quick meal of Back Country Cuisine freeze dried vegetarian pasta and then we were all in bed by 8:30pm. We have a long day tomorrow – getting up at 6am and leaving by 6:30am for the Tongariro Crossing. Let’s see how keen everyone is to get out of bed when the alarm goes off.

And finally, we were all wondering where the 42 Traverse gets its name. I just looked it up, and apparently it is named after the forest, which was originally called State Forest 42. So there you go.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 23 November
Trail covered: 34.2km (kms 1096.6 to 1130.8)
Weather: perfect

Wow it’s the big day! The day I’ve been looking forward to for most of the trail so far. The Tongariro Crossing! My alarm went off at 5:58am. At 5:59am Alex was up and encouraging everyone to get out of bed. It didn’t take much encouraging, everyone was onto it. I guess people are looking as forward to today as I am.

Our goal was to leave by 6:30am. I wasn’t ready to leave until 6:32 and we left at 6:34. It seems a massive bowl of cereal takes longer to eat than you’d think.

Henry was in the holiday park too with his girlfriend Erin. They planned to drive to the car park to save the 7km of road walking up to the start. Charlie and Peter got a ride with them. We laughed at Peter for getting a ride because he hasn’t been hurting and therefore has no reason to skip sections. When they left Ethan said “Goodbye Charlie. Goodbye Cheater, err I mean Peter”. We all laughed.

We started off with the road walk down State Highway 47 and then onto 46.

Henry’s car passed us at about 6:45 and everyone was hanging out the window and waving and they were tooting the horn. Alex walking right in front of me was so zoned out with his music he didn’t even see or hear them.

We passed the 1,100km point of the trail somewhere on State Highway 46, but I’ve decided not to mark every single 100km now. 100km is nothing these days! I’m going to mark the 1,500km, 2,000km, 2,500km and also the finishing point of the North Island section (and obviously the very end also).

After the road walk, we turned into the road leading up to the car park. I liked the view from here.

The first thing we noticed was the great big stop sign.

This was here for several reasons. The first is that the climb is 350 metres higher if you start from this end, i.e. you start 350m closer to sea level. The second is that you’re going against the tide this way. You’ll encounter the hoards of tourists and other people going northbound if you do it this way, and apparently the path is tight in places. About the only people who do the crossing in this direction are Te Araroa hikers. That sign made us feel like badasses. Real adventurers!

Here is the guthook elevation profile for today. Daunting.

We tried to have a guess at how many people might be on the track. Apparently on a usual weekend there are between 1000 and 4000 people. The crossing may or may not have been closed recently (we have heard differing reports) and the weather today is glorious so we think there might be 8000 or so people. I can’t remember how we came up with that number but it seemed reasonable. We thought the only thing that might stop people is it’s still November and not the middle of summer.

The path was initially a bush track, which was a surprise because when you drive around this area the landscape looks really barren. In fact, one of the most dangerous stretches of State Highway 1 goes near here and it is called Desert Road because of the landscape. So I’m sure we will be seeing some different landscapes soon.

There were quite a few things reminding you that you were on an active volcano – for example, this sign:

And the streams had big signs saying not to drink from them. The streams were a weird metallic grey, almost silver.

I definitely don’t want to drink from that. However apparently there is no drinkable water on this trail. I hope the four litres I have will be enough!

There were lots of stairs going up this side.

I walked with Ethan for this bit and I said that I bet the first people we encounter in the other direction would be people running it. It’s a tough climb but I bet there will be someone crazy enough to run it. I mean, I saw the guy at Pirongia summit who was running it.

The stairs were tough going. After a while I reached this sign, and it showed that we still had a hell of a long way to go up.

At least it was the first time we had a nice view of something.

Some things today are really going to require the panorama mode on my camera.

Up to the summit the track was mostly like this the rest of the way. I got quite exhausted early on, which I was surprised about because going up Pirongia was nowhere near as hard as this.

I stopped quite a few times and Ethan got away from me so I was walking up by myself. And at one point the first two people did come down the other way.

They were not runners like I assumed. I stopped and talked to them and they said they started really early and weren’t “dilly-dallying”.

And then 10 or 15 minutes after that the flow of people going the other way started to increase.

I stopped for quite a few snack breaks. At one such break you could see how the track winds its way up the side of the hill.

At 11am, about 15 minutes later, the view hadn’t changed much. I did actually see two runners at this point though.

But once we got high enough, snow!

Not a lot of snow at first, but at least it was snow.

And then a bit of snow that I actually had to cross. This would be challenging if there were a lot of people.

Once over a ridge I could tell that what was past here was something special.

I asked a guy passing if I was at the summit yet. He laughed and gave me an emphatic “no”.

I just about missed the Blue Lake to my left because I was too busy looking at the snow on the other side!

Although everything is so big and grand up here, I’m sure I would have seen it eventually!

Past here there was a big group of people sitting admiring the Blue Lake. I guess for people going north, this is the first spot they see it. The tourists were out in force here. The sound of the Chinese language could suddenly be heard louder than the sound of anything else.

From here it was down a bit and across a path cut across the landscape. And then up a steep hill to Red Crater which was the highest point on the track. You can see it to the right in this picture, the little point without snow just to the right of Mt Ngauruhoe (which was really close by this point!).

The stream of people in the other direction was in full steam now. I hadn’t passed anyone going the same direction as me and nobody had passed me. There was almost nobody else going southbound.

This was the first real decent bit of snow that wasn’t treacherous, and so there were a lot of people throwing snowballs at each other. The rest of my group was ahead so I just took the opportunity to take a selfie.

Here was the first view of the Emerald Lakes…

And the beginning of the ascent up to the highest point. This bit looked quite tough going down, you could see people slipping and struggling with poles and holding hands to form a chain… but going up was a killer. It felt like a 45 degree incline (even though I’m sure it wasn’t) and I could only take a few steps before needing to stop and pause.

As I was walking up here an American girl asked me if I was okay as I was really puffing and wheezing after a particularly strenuous bit. I told her I was going up as opposed to everybody else who was going down and she wanted to know why so I took the opportunity to tell her about the TA. She seemed to think it was cool.

And of course the view got good from up here.

And there was a geocache called “Emerald Lakes” halfway up this tough bit. It was a good excuse to stop for a bit and it was really easy to find. That made a change after failing to find the one on the 42 Traverse.

Even with several breaks this bit was tough. I was so happy to get to the top. Time for another selfie!

And a look back where I’d come from.

I had made it up to the highest point on the North Island section of Te Araroa – Red Crater at 1,886m above sea level. I think that in the whole of the mountainous South Island, we only go above that elevation once so we definitely achieved something today.

I really love how Mt Ngauruhoe looks from this angle. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies, where this mountain features as Mt Doom. I will have to rectify that after the trail.

I saw Alex at the top as well. He must have had a long break, because he was walking so fast this morning. I only saw him for 2 or 3 minutes, because he went back into mountain goat mode and raced down the hill at top speed. I was back with Ethan though. Nice to have a bit of company.

I also saw a guy carrying quite a large boulder up to the summit. When he got asked by someone else why he was doing it, his response was simply “I’m on a mission”. I wonder if the boulder was due to self destruct in 30 seconds.

And surprisingly once we passed the summit, the tourists suddenly stopped. I guess they come up in shuttles or something. It was quite spooky how quiet it suddenly got.

It was a very different landscape coming down the south side. It was just rocks and a featureless landscape. But if you look in the far distance of this picture you can see Mt Taranaki (just):

This side was much less beautiful than the way we came up. I guess too that I’d already seen this view many times before when I used to go snowboarding at Mt Ruapehu nearby.

I wonder why they needed to make all the toilets camouflage colour. Did the iwi insist? Is it so they can’t be seen from a distance and spoil all people’s photos?

A waterfall called Soda Springs was one of the only points of note on this side.

Even the view of Mt Ngauruhoe from this side isn’t as good. I did like the weather warning sign though. Today we were definitely on the correct side of the weather scale.

I had expected to see Mt. Ruapehu by now. We hadn’t seen it all day. I guess Mt. Doom was hiding it. But after a while, suddenly, there it was.

At the southern end of the Tongariro Crossing (the end for us, the start for most people) is the Mangatepopo DOC Hut. I didn’t make the short detour to see it but some TA hikers stay there. It needs to be booked in advance because the Tongariro Crossing is considered a “great walk” and huts and campsites on the great walks need to be booked during peak season. When we passed the turnoff, Peter emerged, saying he had spent an hour or two in the hut relaxing. Wow, he must have moved fast (but then he did skip the 7km of road walking this morning).

Near the hut is the car park for the start of the crossing. TA hikers however turn to the left and continue down a path like this to Whakapapa Village.

Hehe… Whakapapa Village. The “wh” sound is pronounced like the “f” in English and so it sounds like a swear word when you say it. I have been to this village many, many times in my life because of the snowboarding here and even now I still giggle when I have to say the village’s name.

There are quite a few streams on this bit of the walk. Thank God too because the 4 litres of water I brought on the walk was long gone by now. But is this water drinkable? Or is it volcanic? It doesn’t look discoloured. I sampled a bit of the water at one point. Tasted okay, so I filled up one of my water bottles. I found out later that everyone else did the same thing. We all seem okay!

The view of Mt. Ruapehu got better as the walk went on.

And I never get sick of looking back at Ngauruhoe.

After a long day in the sun though, I was really looking forward to seeing some sign of the village. It had all been mountains and rocks up to this point. Surely, the village has to be around this hill:

It was indeed! You can just see The Chateau in the distance on the right.

I pressed on in the heat, and the closer I got to the village, the nicer the paths became. I think there are quite a few walking tracks to various things in Whakapapa.

And finally, here’s the first view you get of the village once there:

A left turn and there’s the blue sign for the holiday park. Hooray.

It was really good to have a shower. Before getting in the shower I did notice how ridiculous my tan lines are now.

And there was the biggest wasp I’ve ever seen by the handbasin.

We again had booked into a cabin which was the same price as at Tongariro – $27 per person for five of us. Although this one had air conditioning! Well, it had an air conditioning unit. I’m not convinced that it did anything except blow recirculated air.

After that monumental day it was definitely time to go for a beer and dinner in the village. We knew there was a bar in the village and so we had been looking forward to this all day. On the way we saw The Chateau up close.

From memory having gone there once many years ago, it was quite a fancy place. We saw a lot of people having a formal dinner in there. They probably wouldn’t let us in!

We weren’t headed there though. We were headed here (across the road):

I have still been craving an Espresso Martini ever since Day 1, and still haven’t had one. Unfortunately I couldn’t get one from here either. But they did have Monteith’s Black on tap, which is a fantastic beer. I had a couple of those, a vegetarian burger, and this thing which is called a Tussock Snowball – a jumbo profiterole with caramel mousse, rum and raisin ice cream and toasted white chocolate.

One of the subjects discussed today while walking down the mountain was favourite cocktails. And so we thought “to hell with it”, let’s go to The Chateau. The worst that can happen is we get turned away because we are stinky hikers. Well we didn’t get turned away, despite the yellow crocs, and I got my Espresso Martini!

It was good, but not very alcoholic. And the service was real slow, with just one waiter for the lounge area and one guy making drinks. It was 10 minutes before we even got any table service and then at least another 20 minutes before we got our drinks.

When I got my drink I said “awesome, I’ve been waiting two months for this” – referring to the amount of time since I was initially craving it on Day 1. However I think the waiter interpreted that comment as a dig at the slow service and he didn’t look happy. I tried to explain what I meant but I just kept digging myself further into a hole. Oops. Oh well… the service was slow anyway!

We just got the one cocktail because you could see the exhaustion on everybody’s faces. Then we went back to the holiday park and went to sleep.

I realised that I never saw Henry today. I wonder how he got back to his car or what he did after the crossing. He is doing the river journey three days after the rest of us so that his girlfriend can join him, so I might not see him again until close to Wellington if he catches up again.

Everyone today said that this was the best day so far and the steep section up to Red Crater was probably the toughest individual section on the entire trail. But we are glad it is over as we are exhausted and sunburnt.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.

Date: 24 November
Trail covered: 30.2km (kms 1130.8 to 1161.0)
Weather: hot again

Good morning Whakapapa!

Another beautiful day in the village. Hardly surprising, the forecast shows no rain for what seems like forever. It wasn’t too hard to get out of bed at 6am today. My legs didnt hurt too much. I even had breakfast in the dining room and got back to the cabin before anyone else was out of bed.

None of us were really sure what we were in for today. With the apparent multitude of tracks in the area, it could be anything.

There’s always time for one more picture of a mountain. There was a kind of a haze in the air today. The mountains were not as clear and stunning as they were yesterday.

The first interesting thing we came to was something called the Golden Rapids.

It was cool, but when I tried to photograph it, it just looks like diarrhea.

It was a really rough stream, which is also hard to show in a photo.

The landscape soon changed to this. This sort of landscape is what we would be walking through all the way from Whakapapa to National Park Village, some 20km away (well this and 7 or 8km of State Highway 47).

This was a really beautiful path and there was a view of Mt. Ruapehu at all times.

And some more fast-flowing streams.

There was a little bit of bush section.

Today was almost entirely downhill except there was a fair bit of uphill in this section and I really felt my legs when going uphill, after doing the Tongariro Crossing yesterday. Lucky I had a lightish pack now. Must be because my food is running out… or have I left something behind at the holiday park?

There was a little bit of mud but not a lot. There were also these signs, which were quite random. They seemed to be names of ski runs, but I’m fairly sure that at least as long as I’ve been alive, they have never had skiing or snowboarding this far down Ruapehu.

I still thought the signs were neat though.

I was out in front at first today for some reason. I think the others were taking it a bit slower because there was no real rush today. I managed to get Alex in some pictures which I don’t normally get to do because he is usually so far ahead.

We don’t have a campsite planned tonight. There is a 50 or 55km section between National Park Village where there just doesn’t seem to be any information on where to stay. And even the fit guys I’m with won’t be walking that far. So we have to just see what happens.

There was a real rocky bit…

And then this real beautiful bit. Walking down this boardwalk was amazing.

This bridge was quite neat too, although it was very wobbly for something that doesn’t look like your usual suspension bridge.

Peter and Alex soon passed me. And Charlie told Ethan a story about how he nearly got a torn scrotum when he was 15. Long story short, he was trying to jump a fence and *almost* tore his scrotum but what he did get were 15 stitches in his leg.

It had been a nice trail so far, made even nicer by the fact we would be getting a good lunch at National Park. However, when we reached this intersection we had to turn off the boardwalk and the trail got a lot rougher.

I thought to myself I bet it’s muddy from here. It didn’t look too bad at first, just a bit of mud again.

But it was deceiving – there was mud under the tussock where you didn’t expect it and I managed to slip twice in five minutes and so I took it a bit more carefully after that.

We came to something called the Hauhungatahi Wilderness Area. These signs had obviously been here a while, because of the state of them but also because the distance to the campsite is given in miles.

I don’t know what gave me this massive scratch along this section but something did.

We still had a lot of elevation to go down. Whakapapa is at 1100m up and the Whanganui River is down at about 100m so we have a lot of descending to do over today and tomorrow. Here was one particularly steep but beautiful bit:

11am rolled around and it was time for a rest and a snack break.

This path went on for quite a while, alternating between easy bush walk and muddy pathway but eventually came out at Mangahuia Campsite and then shortly after State Highway 47. I thought the yellow sign reminding you to drive on the left was interesting. I’d never seen that sign before.

And then there was this sign too which was cool. Someone has attempted to draw skis on the kiwi. A “skiwi”, if you will.

State Highway 47 is a very straight road where cars drive fast because there are no obstacles and very few corners. I did see this glove on a marker post. Maybe a hiker got fed up with the cars zooming past.

Not long before the multitude of signs welcome you to National Park.

This is the last bit of civilization before the river journey, so we had to visit the Four Square. But first, Schnapps bar slash restaurant for lunch. It had a large kiwi right outside.

I’m wearing my backup shirt today because we did laundry at Whakapapa Holiday Park. By this point I remembered why I don’t usually wear it, and that’s because when it gets sweaty it smells like wet wool which isn’t a smell I like. This shirt is 100% merino wool as opposed to the blue icebreaker one I nornally wear which is a merino blend.

At Schnapps I got an apple cider, nachos and again another gigantic dessert – this time sticky toffee pudding.

We also made sure to get any internet or phone stuff done while here. Once past here, our understanding is that there is no more phone coverage until Whanganui, seven days or so from here.

Once that was done, we headed on over to the Four Square back past the kiwi…

And people bought what food they needed to. I didn’t know this Four Square was here so I did all my food shopping in Taumarunui. All I got here was cheese, apples and strawberries to eat today, and some chocolate that was definitely milk chocolate and not dark.

We were soon on our way again, through the streets of National Park.

That didn’t take long, as this village only has four or five streets! I was hurting though. I had eaten so much st lunch that everything hurt and I was feeling a little bit sick. So was everyone, I think.

It was then up a gravel road into the Erua Forest.

It was a standard gravel road at first…

But the views got better as time went on and we got to the top of the hill and started descending again.

We ended up at a big fence.

It looks like there is a dispute between hunters and the landowner. The large gate is clearly there to keep people out, but somebody has scrawled “this is a public road, the lock will be coming off” onto the “security cameras” sign. And then next to it were these signs about illegal poaching.

Well at least it isn’t the hikers causing any problems. The view of the forest was really nice here.

Time for a panorama, methinks.

We had some discussions about how much further we wanted to walk. Ethan suggested another 20km to a spot where he had read people can camp, but the rest of the group seemed against that idea as it was too far and we’d get in too late. And I was very uncomfortable because of the sheer volume of food I ate at National Park.

So around this point we started looking for suitable places to camp. It means a 42km mostly road walking day tomorrow, but we’d rather camp here than on the side of a road.

We set up camp in technically what seems to be the middle of a 4WD track, but Ethan had inspected the ruts and none of them looked fresh so we thought we’d be okay. We set up our poles in the shape of crosses so if by some chance any quad bikes did come past, they wouldn’t plow straight into us.

It was very much an impromptu campsite. It was not the best or flattest spot but we couldn’t find much better in this area that was near water. And the cellphone coverage definitely had ended by now.

Charlie and Peter set up their tent without the tent fly on. And so I thought, why not, I’ll do that too. So no tent fly on my tent tonight. I can lie here and look up at the stars. There was not a chance in hell of any rain but this could make it quite cold. Still, I’m keen to see how it goes.

There were flies everywhere at this spot which was quite unpleasant, and the buzzing they make when they fly around is so loud. But as the sun went down, the sound of flies buzzing turned into the sound of birdsong and then as the sun went right down, that changed again into the sound of the morepork. Much better.

Click here to see today's walk on the map.