Te Araroa Trail – Day 54

Wednesday, December 27, 2023
Distance/ Total: 6.9 km / 4.3 mi

After 2 days off trail and 9 days without hiking I am excited to get back to covering some distance on foot. Today, however, is just going to be a short roadwalk into Whanganui to the bus station so I can return to Taumarunui and pick up where I left off on December 18th.

The roadwalk is part of the official trail so I did get 6.9 km in for the day. It followed the Whanganui River and passed by a nice historic park with an old steamboat.

I caught the bus at 11:30 and it was a 2.5 hour ride to Taumarunui. Riding through lunch I was hungry when we arrived and I went to lunch with Claudio & Matt, a couple of other hikers returning to resume their hikes as well.

We caught a shuttle out to Taumarunui Canoe Hire to camp for the night, all of us planning to get back on trail tomorrow morning.

The canoe hire was extremely busy due to the holiday season and there were probably 40+ campers there tonight.

We visited, met new people and discussed gear until dusk when I finally crawled into my tent for the night, anxious to get back on trail tomorrow.