Te Araroa Trail Half Way!
If you’re paying attention, you will have noticed today’s mileage!
I hit the 1520km HALF WAY point of Te Araroa Trail today – I can’t quite believe it! The first half has been brilliant 🙂 The second half will be a lot more remote and mostly ups and downs, which will be a lot tougher… I can’t wait!
Out of Palmerston North
Today was very pleasant. I began at 6.45am and the trail started with a nice walk around various gardens on the way out of Palmerston North. Once out of the city, the trail followed a gravel road with pretty views of the surrounding hillsides – the start of the Tararuas.
I was following the map on the Guthook Te Araroa Hiker app as usual, but a quick glance at the trail notes told me that I’d missed about 8kms of non-road walk.. a bit of a discrepancy between the two.
I passed the half way point with a quiet woop to myself and signed my name on the board.
Into the Tararuas
From here the track steadily climbed. I stopped at the Kahuterawa ‘Lions Reserve’ for an early lunch. Strangely, this was where I thought I’d spend the night but it was only 11.15am so I carried on 🙂
A few Kms later the car park indicated the start of the Kahuterawa Recreation area, an area of mountain bike and walking tracks. The trail took the ‘Back track’, which was lovely – an old road slowly climbing through native bush. This led into another gravel road walk, with nice views along the way. The road passed onto regrowing forestry land and climbed again! At the very top were some wonderful views! I met Dutchies Matt and Marissa who had paused at the top for a couple of hours break. We had a quick chat then I descended into the beautiful native forest.
For the benefit of fellow trampers, think Herekino, Ratea or Pirongia… But *dry*!!! The trail headed steeply downhill until it met the river. By this time I’d done about 34kms and my feet were beginning to hate me. I set up camp next to the small river in amongst the trees. It had been a massive day.
I did the camp routine and had a well deserved early night in the forest.
