Te Araroa Trail – Longwood Forest
Laura and I got up at around 6am. It was raining again and I enjoyed some hot oats for breakfast. I needed to be warmed up for today’s trail. I left my wet clothes on the line outside under the verandah to ‘dry’ overnight, and by morning I was pleasantly surprised that they were only damp and not soaking. Even so, I left it until the last possible minute to get changed out of my lovely warm nightwear into cold damp daywear. Within a couple of minutes I was warm again, as the damp merino warmed up.
Longwood Forest
The trail started with a 7km gravel track which started flat and then climbed 800m into Longwood Forest and up to Bald Hill. Along the way, it started to rain again so I got fully dressed in my wet weather gear and plodded on. There were plenty of ups and downs through the other worldly, mossy forest. Each time I came to a peak or exposed tussock section it began to rain, so I spent most of the day in my waterproofs again. At one point I was so cold I had to put my hat and gloves on!! I could hardly even get them out of my pocket my fingers were so cold!
Bog
Longwood Forest was my Ratea Forest. I got off lightly in Ratea (the muddy, hilly forest in Northland which wasn’t actually all that muddy for me). When thinking of today’s trail I will fondly remember it by substituting the word ‘trail’ for either ‘stream’ or ‘bog’. It was that kind of day – pretty terrible to be honest.
Martin’s Hut
I got to Martin’s hut at around 3.30pm. Martin’s hut is a wonderful (damp, freezing) little 4-bed hut. Built in 1905, it is very, very rustic. It was made of corrugated iron with large gaps in the walls/door/floor and an open fireplace and chimney at one end. Three NOBOs turned up – a couple from Canada and a German girl.
I was concerned about the young German girl. She was carrying far too much stuff, seemed under-prepared and didn’t know how to work her stove. By her own admission was very slow, and not at all confident about doing the trail. From their stories, it sounded like she was already relying on the other couple who had waited for her on and off all day. I gave her the best advice I could and hope she found someone suitable to walk with.
The Canadian guy (some kind of fire magician) got a fire going – a considerable feat given that the whole forest and all the firewood was wet. We hung all our wet things up to dry, spent the evening eating and went to bed early to keep warm. It soon became very cold again as soon as the fire died off a little.
