Te Araroa Trail – Day 73

Monday, January 15, 2024
Distance/ Total: 0 km / 0 mi

I woke up to rain this morning. Another good reason to go into Wellington rather than hike.

Claudio got around a packed up his gear. He was going to continue on the trail today. We went to grab a cup of coffee together on his way out of town, but the only place we found was a coffee truck. We ordered coffee and sat under a bus stop awning to drink it before he continued on.

I went back to the motel and loitered around for awhile. I know I can’t check into my Wellington hotel until after noon at the earliest so I wasn’t in a hurry to get moving along.

I eventually checked out and walked to the train station to catch the next train. It’s 82km by trail from Waikanae to Wellington, but only a 55 minute train ride. I was in Wellington before 11:00am.

I needed to find trekking poles, socks, and underwear while I was in town. Fortunately, all of the sporting gear stores were in the same general area about 1 km from the train station.

It was a short walk and I checked in 4 of the stores. I was able to find trekking poles fairly easily, but not as lucky with the other items. The only store that carried Injinji socks was closed on Monday (of course) and none of the sporting apparel stores seemed to stock Under Armour underwear.

I did find a burrito shop while I was walking around and stopped in for a good burrito for lunch. After eating I managed to waste away enough time that I could probably check in.

I walked to the hotel, checked in, and unpacked my bag. I had a bounce box at the nearby post office so I headed down there to pick it up.

I now have new shoes (my old ones were pretty holey) and I also had a pair of Injinji socks and a pair of underwear in my box. Immediately problem solved. I can try to find replacements for my bounce box later while I’m still in Wellington.