26th Jan Thursday, TA Araroa 117
Taipo Hut, 2,700km to Kiwi Burn swing-bridge 2,741km (41km) Tent
Second breakfast was at Boundary Hut, no water as it’s been turned off for the winter in the event of the pipes freezing up.
My first breakfast
Going was easy to get to this hut, going through a few mush lands with sinking up to near my knees at times but now we are following a 4WD track.
Leaving the hut
Charwara river crossings all were told to be difficult but when you come to them, it’s just a easy step over.
After travelling through farm land along the 4WD track which most was easy going, we came to Mavora Lakes Camping Area. Surprisingly there were a lot of campers but we carried on crossing the Mararoa River via a swingbridge. From here for the next 3 hours the walk running parallel with the river was really plesent even under the gray clouds that provided a constant drizzle. At this rate, I felt I could go on for a couple of more hours, the path was really soft with moss and dead leaves and the cover of the trees protecting us from the rain.
Come 5:30 we were about three kms from the third bridge, Kiwi Burn swing-bridge were we had planned to camp for the night as 41kms for the day was enough. But at that time the sky opened up and while we were in the open, we got drenched and this continued till after I had set up my tent.
Some of the mud I had to hike through
This time I tried to sent up the tent by fitting the outer shell first with the theory that I’d then fit the inner-shell so that everything keeped dry.
Well it kind of worked, but I took a lot of time getting the outer shell fitted and I myself was getting even wetter. Maybe more practice is required.
