• Te Araroa Day 20
• Sandy Bay to Ngunguru – 16.7 km in 5 hours
• Other TA hikers encountered: 3!

It’s taken us a couple of weeks to get the hang of the pronunciation for Ngunguru, and our host mentioning it yesterday was handy!

Five minutes before leaving I realised my beloved z seat was nowhere to be seen… How had I managed to lose it?!? Did it blow away when I was drying my tent yesterday afternoon? It really hadn’t been windy. Did a chicken take it? Did I drop it on yesterday’s walk? I was really gutted, especially because if I dropped it, it might end up as rubbish.

We took our host’s suggested route this morning along the twin coastal highway. The road wasn’t really very busy, and although the humidity had me dripping in no time flat again, it was lovely morning sunshine again. I pondered what had happened to my seat. Then we stopped so I could take a photo here, and Ian kindly took one of me too:

Next minute..

I’d somehow dropped a pole, and it slithered into the water despite a dive from me where I skinned my knee…but, I did manage to step round, hang off the wooden railing, and retrieve it only getting one foot wet! All in all not bad and it gave me a laugh!

We continued on the road chatting about when I might be keen for a rest day since Ian is thinking of buying a new pack, possibly in Whangarei. I said my body was feeling pretty good, so just wherever. Probably only half an hour later my left quad got sore again. I stretched it, but to no avail. It got really sore, like I’d strained it. Bugger, this really wasn’t good… It had been a little sore at the end of the Morepork day, but fine yesterday.

It was just 4 km but quite slow to Ngunguru on the unhappy leg. The taping helped but it wasn’t loving the downhill. On the upside I got a real ice cream, and saw this cool letterbox:

Soon we were at the dock where we were to wait for James. He came across in his little boat, and we waded out to hop in. It was just a quick trip across to his camp on the other side.

Below their house they have two cabins, space for camping, two beautiful outdoor hot showers, composting toilets, and a big open air kitchen dining place.

At 4pm another couple arrived, also hiking Te Araroa south bound! Greg and Jo from Christchurch had a month off work and were section hiking, from Kerikeri. They had met a day walker carrying my seat who asked if it was theirs, but they’d politely said no. Seat whereabouts is still unknown but it’s nice someone picked it up! Then we watched the America’s Cup at James’s house with his partner. Zac, a north bound TA walker (also from Christchurch) arrived in the meantime, so it had become quite the party! James’s partner offered us all delicious homemade, chilled kombucha and Team NZ came from behind to win a nail biter.

I explained to James about my low waste food system, and asked whether he might be able to take my compostic bags off my hands to compost. He was stoked and said they could reuse them, and it sparked quite a long conversation about rubbish and society. I was really grateful to offload about a week’s worth of bags, and to find someone else passionate about reducing waste too.

He gave us 4 fresh eggs for dinner, and they had herbs growing out the back for campers, so I whipped up some yummy scrambled eggs for Ian and I. James also gave our south bound group a briefing on our tidal river crossing tomorrow. It’s going to be an early start, but his information board was fantastic:

My appetite has really increased. Today’s food included: porridge, tea, big serving of trail mix, pie in Tutakaka, the ice cream, couscous lunch, 2 scrambled eggs, big bulgar wheat dinner, and a calorific hot chocolate! Maybe I’ll be at competitive eater level towards the end of this?

I took a voltaren this afternoon and wasn’t on my feet much once we arrived this afternoon. Tomorrow is about the same distance, so I’m hoping my leg will be ok enough to get to our next accommodation stop, where we may have a rest day for my leg and Ian’s pack shopping. I think I might have actually strained my quad or aggravated it trying to grab my pole before it slid into the river, so that was a shame. It probably needs a tubi grip, but there weren’t any pharmacies on the trail today.

It was nice to have others to talk to, but I struggled with an hour of ‘gear chat’ and found it a bit overwhelming! However, I did ask north bound Zac to keep an eye out for my seat 🤞