Te Araroa Trail – Day 62

Thursday, January 4, 2024
Distance/ Total: 32.5 km / 20.2 mi

Claudio and I slept in this morning since we had a tidal river to cross at the end of our day and needed to cross near low tide. Low tide was 11pm so we planned for a late start and would try to cross about 9:00 to 9:30pm.

We opted to do our own laundry and headed down to the laundromat about 7:30. We put our clothes in the washer and walked down to a coffee shop and drank a cup of coffee while our clothes washed.

We went back snd moved them to the drier then headed to Rebel Sports where Claudio picked up a new rain jacket. I looked for socks but they didn’t have what I wanted.

After getting our clothes from the drier we headed to Kathmandu where I found some socks and stove fuel. The next stop was Countdown for a food resupply, then on to another cafe where we grabbed an early lunch.

We started on the trail about 11:00 am. The trail crossed the Whanganui River on a bridge then had the option of climbing stairs up Durie Hill or walking through a tunnel and riding an elevator up. I’ve walked up many hills, but have never rode an elevator up one before so I opted for the elevator ride.

We climbed the tower at the top and took a few pictures of Whanganui below. Back on the trail we started the 27km roadwalk to Whangaehu Beach. It was a long walk on a mostly paved road. As we walked the road Eric came up behind us. I had met Eric (from the Netherlands) on day 2 and had crossed each others paths for the first couple of weeks.

We caught up on each others trip and it made the roadwalk go by much faster. We reached the beach about 6:00 pm and continued down the coastline toward our camp.

There had been a lot of comments about the water being high on the Turakina River so we were a little worried about that crossing. When we arrived at the river at 7:30 (3 hours before low tide) Eric volunteered to cross without his pack to see how deep the water was. He barely got his shorts wet. A lot of hype for nothing. We all grabbed our packs, waded across the river, and walked into camp.

The camp host was a great guy and got us lined up on where to set up our tents. We ate dinner, showered, and turned in about 9:30.