By Elliot

Distance: 20km

After a lovely self-catered breakfast at our motel, the day began. It was raining. We walked through town, and past a statue proclaiming Te Kuiti to be the shearing capital of the world, and eventually got to the start of the trail part of our day. I wonder if shearing capital is self proclaimed. Is there some sort of mechanism or association with o asset the legitimacy of these proclamations?

The first part of the trail was through a ditch with grasses as high as our heads that were completely saturated with water. We were also next to a fence, on the other side of which was first a sawmill, and then a limeworks. We got soaked, but since our shoes were still wet from yesterday, it wasn’t too bad.

The trail eventually left the industry of the town, and continued following the river upstream. While this sounds lovely and easy in theory, in practice it was anything but. The trail undulated a lot, forcing us to climb and descend constantly. The mud was unavoidable, making slipping very easy when it was muddy clay. The alternative was mud where our feet sunk in to mid-shin. And the width of the trail was often only enough for a single foot to be on it, while also forcing us to side hill because the trail wasn’t flat.

At one point, we thought we were done with the trickiest bits of the trail. It turns out we were incorrect. It was just a brief interlude for the trail to introduce more factors into the day: blackberry thorns and thistles. So we had all of the above to contend with while also getting our legs scratched up.

All that said, we saw some beautiful bits of forest, and the trail had some parts which were lovely. It was the kind of trail that really made us feel like we were venturing on an epic quest across the country.

It took us 9h 45min to go 20km, and we were exhausted (and very hungry!) by the end of it. Luckily there are other hikers staying at tonight’s campsite who we could commiserate about the trail with.