• Te Araroa Day 38
• Rangiriri to Huntly – 19.44 km in 5 hours 15 minutes
• TA ice cream count: 10

It rained again overnight, and I spent more time reading than sleeping… again. I lay in the tent listening to the loud traffic hoping the sun would come up to dry it out a little. It did and I shuffled around packing up at snail pace. I didn’t have too far to go today, and had decided I would walk mostly on the roads today as I’d heard there were sometimes bulls somewhere around Rangiriri.

I crossed the river and started on the road I followed most of the way to Huntly. The traffic was sporadic and the road verge was fine. A nice breeze kept me cool and the weather felt much more autumnal. Not a lot happened other than seeing a long convoy of cars led by four burly motorbikes, an onion farm harvesting their crop, and then the chimneys of the Huntly Power Plant came into view.

Even though it was a beautiful day I found the power plant depressing – apparently Genesis Energy hopes to use coal only in abnormal market conditions from 2022, and remove it completely by 2030. The Waikato River also didn’t look in a great state, and depressing but slightly edgy probably summed up Huntly well too. I tried to cheer myself up with an ice cream, but mochachino flavour wasn’t really doing it for me. Just then, one of the main tourist attractions in Huntly came into view. I’d completely forgotten it was located here… The old DEKA sign!

I arrived at Huntly Campground, which is next to Lake Hakanoa mid afternoon, not really expecting too much. The little lake is beautiful though, and the older folk at the camp were really welcoming. The owners (currently out of town) are big TA supporters, so have cabins for $20/night! The showers have great water pressure, and it’s a really nice size camp – not too big. It even seemed to have unlimited fast Wi-Fi.

Tomorrow I’m taking a rest day because although I skipped ahead on the bus a day, I need to arrive in Hamilton as originally planned because of a food box going there. My legs also seem to desperately need a rest before I pull a quad muscle. The next section is a forest ridge with a reasonable climb up and similar descent so not something to be done on dodgy legs.

Mentally, I’ve lost the plot a bit. After Auckland the Waikato section of Te Araroa just doesn’t seem to have a lot to look forward to. I miss the friendly faces and company in Auckland, and am sick of shitty bits of trail and cattle. The forest part will be nice, the timber trail cycling part isn’t far away, but it’s all just feeling a bit “meh”.