Te Araroa day 40 – A nice day
January 11th 2017
Ngaherenga campsite - Bog Inn hut
10.1 miles
Total distance: 612.2 miles
After a solid 10 hours sleep, which was not enough, I'm sure I could sleep for 10 more at least, it started to get very warm in the tent so the pack up began. When I took my first steps towards the toilet I thought my knees were broken, they hurt so much and I did think I would be able to walk on them. Erin told me I looked like a robot and the men who were camped over the other side of the field shouted over to ask if I was ok. Oh fine, I say, it just takes a while to get going in the mornings.
After our big day yesterday Julia recalculated our mileage we needed to average and it has gone down to 9.4 miles a day, and that includes 2 zero days. It's nice to have a bit of breathing space. So today we are doing a very easy day. Hopefully it will give my body a chance to heal a bit.
We start walking at 9:30 and it was a great morning on the Timber Trail. This is a great trail which is primarily a bike trail but is open to hikers too. It's a well-built wide trail and easy walking, it's a very gradual incline and a very pleasant walk. After only 1 hour and 45 minutes we reached the half way point for the day. 5 miles done, 5 miles to go, brilliant. There was a little shelter where we took a small break before moving on to complete the second half of the day. We continued on the Timber trail for a little bit, then we turned off the trail to go up to Mt Pureora summit.
It was nice to get back onto a more rugged trail and it was a really nice walk up to the summit, we didn't think we would get any views because the cloud was hanging low, so it was a nice surprise to be able to see out quite a long way, and get a glimpse of Lake Taupo. It was super windy at the tip so we didn't hang around long we made our way down the other side and back onto the Timber Trail. The way down was a bit muddy but mostly avoidable with strategically placed planks and logs.
We hopped back onto the Timber trail and cruised down to the next junction where we left the nice wide trail for good this time, and joined the Hauhungaora trail. We took a small side trail which lead to the Bog Inn hut where we planned to stay the night. We have paid for a 6 month DOC hut pass and these huts are covered by that.
This hut is a basic hut with 4 bunks with mattresses, a table and a wood burner. We got there at 2:50pm so we had plenty of time to relax and hang out. We sat outside at the picnic table until the sun went behind the trees and it cooled off.
In the hut we were full of good intentions, we were going to play cards and entertain ourselves, but we had put on our sleep clothes and got into our sleeping bags and had no desire to move. We ate in our beds and chatted and did whatever we could without moving. Listened to podcasts, read etc. A lady came into the cabin looking for a bed, but as there were four of us they were all taken. Erin offered her the use of her tent, but the lady had her bike and said she was just going to bike back to her car. She stayed for a while and we chatted to her but never found out her name.
We were all in bed by 7pm and we struggled to stay awake until 9
Side note: operation MLW is going very badly; message sent, message read, message ignored. Bummer.