Day 45
Oct 15 day 45. National Park 0 km. Turns out I need to take a couple of unanticipated zero days to work out the river transportation. A large segment of the trail is impassable because of a collapsed bridge, so the best (only) strategy is to put in the water at Wades Landing and canoe […]
Day 44
Oct 14 day 44 Whakapapa Campground to National Park 20 km 9:00-2:00 Today was all about the trail. It was also about my usually wrong preconceptions. Here in the middle of the national park– Tongiriro/Ruapehu– are a large number of trails catering to an equally large number of tourists. I started this morning from Wakapapa […]
Day 43
Oct 13 day 43 Tongiriro Holiday Campground to Whakapapa Campground 35 km (track official, not what happened) 7:15-2:00 A day started in uncertainty. The Tongiriro Crossing involves some serious altitude, including the edge of the Red Crater at over 1800 meters. There is still snow up there. A lot of it. All advice is not […]
Day 42
Oct 12 day 42 stealth camp to Tongiriro Holiday Campground 28 km (actually at least 35). 8:00-5:00 What was supposed to have been a walk in the park didn’t quite work out that way. The main path on the 42 Traverse is clear and easy to follow. At some point, the TA veers off to […]
Day 41
Oct 11 day 41 Taumaranui to stealth camp on 42 Traverse 34 km 9:00-4:30 My first equipment failure and it wasn’t my shoes (they keep holding on). The bottom valve of my camelback failed which of course meant a liter or more of water in the bottom of my pack. Made me glad I double […]
Day 40
Oct 10 day 40 Taumaranui Zero Day I had hoped to get new shoes today, but the outfitter only sells heavy hunting boots. The shoe store had the perfect shoe, but not even close to my size. Looks as if I’m going to have to get another 200 km out of my torn up North […]
Day 39
Oct 9 day 39 Waihaha hut to Taumaranui 40 km hiking, 10 km ride 8:15-6:15 A ridiculous day. Started out slow as Jan, the Czech thruhiker in the shelter was sleeping in. I tried to be quiet (hard to do when you are opening and closing all those small bags, etc.). Still, got off at […]
Day 38
Oct 8 day 38 Ngaherenga campsite to Waihaha hut 34 km 7:15-5:15 Whew, what a day that was. Started out of the camp fairly early in a cold misty rain, followed the Forest Trail bicycle path for most of the morning. You can see where a lot of trail building money went, that path is […]
Day 37
Oct 7 day 37 Mangaokewa road to Ngaherenga campsite 36 km 8:00-4:00 Al, the transport guy, picked me up at 7:15 to head back to Mangaokewa road to start the day, but because they are strengthening a bridge, we had to do a detour around the countryside and passed one of the many farm airstrips […]
Day 36
Oct 6 day 36 Te Kuiti to Mangaokewa road 22 km 8:15-1:15 Slack Pack– never did that on the Appalachian Trail, but did today. Since there were over 60 km of hiking without camping possibilities, I decided to stay two nights in Te Kuiti, walking out this morning to do the first section of 22 […]