Te Araroa : Hamilton to Te Kuiti

KM this section : 116
KM completed: 906

I rather like Hamilton, nice to eat some proper food, pizza, bacon sarnies, mince and cheese pie (sounds weird but it works), and a good meal with actual vegetables at the Londoner - they even have English beer on tap, bit pricey though.  I sit through half an hour of a nativity play, well it is Christmas.  Turns out the guy who invited me in (with promise of cake, which will get me anywhere these days) wants to talk about god, I have shopping to do though (and there was no cake, grr).

Eight hundred whole kilometres done.

I make a late start out of Hamilton, faffing around with breakfast and more shopping (new water filter, yay).  Many kilometres to do, easy enough to start with on roads that get increasingly minor as I go.  Honestly I'm not looking forward to leaving the road, it's going to be bush, and I am starting to, ah, have strong negative feelings about the bush.  But in fact something of a miracle occurs, I leave the road and walk onto a grassy hillside, then climb with turf underfoot and views for miles around.  This is how it is supposed to be.  I'm tempted to walk through to my planned campsite, but I won't get there 'til nine or so... a pleasant spot by a river will do nicely anyway, and if I now have a twelve hour day tomorrow, going by the guide, so be it.

One noticeable absence from the walk so far has been mountains, there will be plenty to come for sure.  Today is the first of any note, Mount Pironghia, at nine hundred and fifty-nine metres it doesn't quite hit the one thousand mark but it's big enough.  Just a pity it's bush all the way to the top, and indeed back down.  At its worst it's an utterly vile morass of sucking mud, and I'm actually doing worse than the two kilometres per hour the guide reckons.  Note to TA powers that be, 'utterly vile' is not the best phrase that could be used to describe your path.  Of course it is only me, your mileage may vary, etc.

Pahautea hut.

Well... next day I start from a random field, it's wet, there are of course bitey insects, and I am eight kilometres behind plan.  Off at 7am then... fortunately the plan was just a twenty-eight kilometre day, still lots of off-road, I am afraid.  But today, I get nice Te Araroa, more grassy hills and what bush there is, is OK.  Just a couple of flies in the ointment, first the bit where in the absence of any signage I follow the GPX line and end up standing, exactly on the line, facing an unsurmountable slope.  Hmm.  Had to walk through lots of bog to reach it too.  Well, I find my way around somehow.  More annoying because it is my own fault is when I stop for lunch, unpack the tent to dry it out, and realise I've left the pegs back in that random field, too much hurry to get going and away from the bugs I fear.  Good thing I'm at a proper campsite tonight, at Waitomo, where a lovely Canadian chap lends me some pegs.  Waitomo is in fact unexpectedly great, there are various drinking establishments, at one of which I consume a quite insane burger... it has steak on it.  And egg.  I feel a little better the next day, beer always helps, and the walking through farmland into Te Kuiti is easy enough.  It's just a lunch and resupply stop, but I need pegs too, and what will the afternoon bring?  Watch this space...

Photos to go with this post can be found here.