Te Araroa : Manukau to Hamilton

KM this section : 151
KM completed : 790

Looking down at the Wairoa reservoir.

So I made forty-five kilometres look pretty easy yesterday, things had to go downhill, and so : the bush is back.  Maybe the mud isn't so bad, but still, the thirteen kilometres or so of forest that caps the next day proves hard.  Have I mentioned how even when the ground underfoot isn't mud, it's often a tangled mass of roots so that you must pick every step or risk a trip or twisted ankle?  Did I speak of the tendrils of vine that snake across the path, hard as steel cable and ready to trip or tangle the unwary?  Occasionally the forest canopy parts and I get a view, but you know what?  I'd like a view while I'm walking, but even if there were one I have to watch my feet every step instead.  This is 'only' a forty-one day, but after twelve hours I'm still walking, will I make it to Wairoa dam where I plan to camp before dark?  Nearly... with a kilometre to go I reach a junction, orange triangles point both ways, no suggestion which is the Te Araroa route.  The GPX route I have from the official website says straight on... of course it is wrong.  Half an hour wasted and I walk down to the dam by the light of my headtorch.

More wild camping.

Only thirty-eight kilometres, haha, planned next day, trouble is the first fifteen or so are 'bush kilometres'.  I begin to suspect that not only has no real path been constructed through areas like this, but even the distance the marked route takes hasn't been measured.  Or maybe they think that switchbacks, detours around ravines etc. just don't count.  Anyway... I walk for four hours at what seems mostly a decent pace, maybe four kilometres per hour barring the odd tricky bit.  So, having stopped for lunch, it is with disbelieving horror that I find I've done less than eight 'official kilometres'.  I finally emerge from the bush after 4pm, with twenty-three kilometres still to do, well, at least I now have some flat, along roads and Dutch-style dykes.  A look at the guide suggests more of this tomorrow so I cut today's route short, still my second thirteen hour day on the trot though.

The Waikoto River.

The next day into Huntly is indeed easy going, more dykes and roads through the flood plain around the wide Waikato river.  Unbroken by the last two days I power through it to reach Huntly by 6.30pm... a real bed in a motel, yay!  But I'm gaining more respect for the trip times given in the guide, ridiculous though they seem at first.  So tomorrow there is a eleven kilometre bush section the guide reckons will take eight hours, meaning I have a fourteen hour walk to Hamilton, ugh.  But as it turns out, the Hakuna Matata, ah, sorry, Hakarimata Forest track takes me only four and a half hours, and is largely pleasant.  Lots of hikers here too, I chat to the usual mix of Germans and Americans, and even a Romanian today.  Another motel in Hamilton, such decadence, and for two nights, it is about time I had a 'zero day' - hiker terminology, a day of zero movement along the route.  Think I earned it.  Over a quarter done now!

Photos to go with this post can be found here.