Day 41: Waitomo to Mangaokewa River Track (896-923)

Monday, January 9

Julia, Puff Puff and I left the hostel at 7:15 and headed for the General Store in Waitomo. We were hoping they'd open at 7:30 so we could grab breakfast to start our day. When we arrived we saw they didn't open til 8, so we snacked on what we had in our packs and waited for them to open.

We began walking down the trail at 8:30. The trail notes said we should make it to Te Kuiti, the shearing capitol of the world, in 6 hours. The track was mostly on farmland and in bush skirting the edge of farmland. It was a lot of little ups and downs but nothing too bad. There was a beautiful track about a kilometer in length just after a suspension bridge. There were so many tall trees in it! We had a lot of fun singing Hamilton songs while we walked too.

After a nice few hours on farmland, we hit a road that would take us to Te Kuiti so we decided to take it. We wanted a yummy lunch and road walking is faster than farm walking. At 12:30 we strolled into town! Te Kuiti was very sheep and shearing themed, which was fun.

We ate lunch at a cafe and then walked to New World to resupply for the next 5 days. By then we planned to be in Taumaranui. I had way too much food on me so I only needed some snacks and got some macaroni and cheese for tonight.

It had been cloudy and drizzled on and off all morning, but as the afternoon rolled around the sun came out and it really warmed up. We walked to the DOC building so Julia and Puff Puff could look stuff up about the Northern Circuit in Tongariro National Park (they're going to have time to kill if they start on the river trip on January 26 with our whole group).

We visited the i-SITE too and then took photos with the HUGE shearing statue on our way out of town. We wanted to get to a campsite about 11 kilometers out of town and left Te Kuiti around 5 pm. The trail was nice and followed the river but some areas seemed more like a goat trail. We even saw two goats and a bunny by the trail!

Even though the trail was a difficult way to end the day, it ended up all being worth it because the campsite Julia wanted to stay at ended up being amazing! It had a table with chairs and was right by the river with trees to put our tents under. In case it was warm enough for a swim in the river there inner tubes for floating as well. My favorite amenity at the campsite was a shovel for digging poop holes - so much easier than using a tent stake or hiking pole for digging!

We arrived there around 7:30, so after dinner we talked for a bit and went to bed.

Julia strikes a pose on the suspension bridge

The short, nice forest trail in the middle of farmland

Looking up at the tall tree tops in the little forest

A nice and clear trail sign on our way out of Te Kuiti

Another nice view before the trail got really difficult.

We hit the 900-K mark today!