By the time we actually got to sleep last night it was almost 10... apparently our bodies don't want to work on less than 12 hours sleep so waking up this morning was almost impossible! Since we were camped pretty much on the track walkway though, we thought we'd better up and move before any early morning dog walkers tripped over the guy lines. We had breakfast and made a coffee before starting towards the bike tracks.
It was a fair stretch on road up to the start of the 'Back Track' which was a steady climb on good path all the way up to the 1500km mark! Half way! We are actually officially over half way of the entire walk!! We had lunch at the stream that crossed the path exactly on 1500km and took a picture or two to mark the moment ... I'm not sure either of us fully believed we'd get this far before we started.
We carried on along the bike track until more road led to more forestry track which was up and down hills like much of the Te Araroa trail...my Fitbit had recorded a climb of 234 sets of stairs before we'd even started the next part of the track, which thankfully was forest and NOT road!
We spent two hours in the forest before pitching up for the night... it's funny how everything I thought I'd hate about this walk is actually what I love the most; the mud, the stream crossings, the huge rocks you have to scramble up and down... after the few rubbishy days of road we'd had, coming back into the forest was just what I needed!
We hadn't planned to stop anywhere in particular so when we found a nice flat spot right beside the river, we decided to call it a day. It was still hot so we washed in the river and spent a few hours relaxing before we were joined by a French couple, Rafael and Malerie. They put our pasta and tuna to shame with their fresh mushroom risotto- who carries fresh mushrooms on a hike through the Tararuas!?
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