• Te Araroa Day 2
• Twilight Beach Camp to Maunganui Bluff Campground – 28.85km in 7.5 hours
• Blisters: 1

After not much sleep but a lot of reading, and some overnight rain, it dawned another nice day. Ian & Andrew left earlier, but yesterday we talked about the tides and 9am being a good time to set off so I did just that (high tide was just after 10am). Two sachets of porridge was a struggle though, I’m not sure I can keep that up!

There was a bit more travel through scrub over the headland than I thought, but then there it was – 90 Mile Beach / Te Oneroa a Tohe! Looking beautiful and… long!

Chatting to mum from the top of the headland in a pocket of reception was a good boost ahead of the slog. After excitingly descending the stairs, panic set in again. The sand was pretty soft, neither my legs or back felt happy, and there was still 25km to go…. What have I got myself into…

I felt a bit better catching up to the boys having a break, to find out they also thought the sand was soft. After a decent break we set out again, all relieved to find harder sand and easier travel.

Walking with Ian for bit and chatting helped pass the time. We swapped theories on why Trump was so popular and what is real happiness. The patterns in the sand were geometric and beautiful, and after Te Paki stream there were fisherman and cars here and there. A Mercedes 4WD driven by someone who looked a lot like Shane Jones stopped to ask if we’d seen any Tuatuas. We pointed them 100m back where we’d just seen them. A tour bus driver stopped his big bus to check if I was ok for water – really kind. Actually the water situation was better than I expected today, with a lot of the little streams flowing, and it was easy to get some and filter it.

From after lunch today’s destination was visible, but seemed a long way away. The breeze was nice to keep cool and wick the sweat, but it was also a decent headwind that made progress just a little harder and relentlessly blew my hat brim up. I was relieved that my back settled down, but a blister cropped up on one heel around the edge of the sole so I put a patch on it, not as quickly as I should have. Pretty soon everything started to hurt. I saved music until the last 10km, and it helped a lot.

Finally I reached the campground, and the sun was still quite hot so a cold shower really was the ticket, and it seemed a good place to do some washing too.

The legs and feet are definitely tired though, and Ian and Andrew seemed very beaten up by today. We chatted about how to tackle the remaining 60km over dinner in the nice little cooking shelter. The campground is a popular place tonight though and there’s a raucous boys fishing group, but I think we’re all too tired to care about the noise. The other good thing about this place is there seems no limit to water usage, so presumably the source is a nearby spring or something.

Today’s rookie error was when I thought I might try and dry the wet tent out in the sun and wind on the beach. At least it didn’t blow away, but all I really succeeded in doing was filling it with sand, and not completely drying it out either! Oops.

So far I’m feeling happy with my homemade food. Today’s lunch was mushroom and tomato orzo that I added the cold water & cheese to this morning, and by lunch it was well rehydrated and tasty. Dinner was garlic parmesan pasta, also yummy, and although I was feeling a bit full the mango pudding was a nice finish. My watch reported today’s walk burned 1100 calories, but I’m not sure until I can sync it how much that will mean for a daily total, or how reliable that is… I’m vaguely wondering if I might be carrying too much food per day?

I’m also feeling relieved. I thought the boys would race ahead, and find it easy. Especially when initially Ian talked about skipping this camp and doing 60 km of beach in one day. Not that I should be comparing myself, but I guess I regretted not training a little harder or being able to walk a little faster. By the end of the day though, I realised that if I stick to my plan, I’ll get there. While I am feeling tired and beaten up, I think I can do it all again tomorrow.

Maybe those will be famous last words haha!

Just before bed Andrew pointed out the wild horses had come to graze on the edge of camp!