• Te Araroa Day 51
• Piropiro to Ongarue – 43.27 km in 5 hours
• Breakfasts: 3!

I had such a good sleep in the glamping tent! Even though the mattress was soft and sunken, it was really cosy with the blankets. Camp Epic provides a great range of breakfast stuff – eggs, bread, milk, muesli, spreads, and hot drinks of course. I managed 3 cups of tea, 2 scrambled eggs on toast, 2 pieces of toast with peanut butter and nutella, and a bowl of muesli. There was no need to hurry off, and luckily while we all slowly got ready a rain shower came and went.

There was no space to bring my normal collection of Gopro gadgets and mounts along on Te Araroa, but here’s a short video to try and show a snippet of the trail. Achieved by shoving the Gopro into my backpack waist strap, and hoping for the best!

This morning’s section featured the longest (141 metres) and highest (53 metres) bridge on the trail. Aghhhhh! Here’s how that went..

I had to talk to myself as I focussed fixedly on the other side the entire way. Phew! There was one point when everything felt too much around Huntly that I was worried about even managing this trail because I don’t love heights. Compared to some of the other things I’ve faced on the journey, overcoming this wasn’t too bad at all. The suspension bridges are very impressive, and I was happy to read that building it meant the trail didn’t have to climb down and back up, and also allowed the whio (blue duck) who live in the river below to be undisturbed. Another fun fact: my neighbour in Christchurch mentioned that he’d worked on these bridges when they were being designed and built!

My legs didn’t feel quite as fresh this morning, and I was missing my bike shorts a bit. I stopped for a rest at one of the historic camp areas, mostly because the sun had come out for what felt like the first time in days.

Riding on the trail followed the route of the old railway almost continuously, and there was plenty of railroad related information along the way. It was hard to imagine how bustling and busy the places had been. Looking at the pictures of the workers, I found myself wondering how they felt about all the forest clearing. Maybe making money and surviving were the only things they could afford to think about? I wondered if back in the day when the forests were being milled and land cleared for farmland whether anyone was sad or worried about it. Maybe they had no idea what was coming though?

I started to feel a bit light headed. I’d really got into my routine of eating and resting once every hour of walking, but the pacing on a bike felt foreign. Yesterday it seemed like I’d got hungrier much faster than I do while walking. I just hadn’t eaten or drunk enough I think and felt much better after having lunch and a drink.

There were some amazingly tall cuttings along the way, more beautiful forest sections, and open parts that were more scrub again too. Towards the end one of the last features is the Ongarue spiral, which was quite the engineering feat back in the day. Basically the trail does a tight loop – easy on a bike but really difficult with logs on a train! It was difficult to capture in a photo, but it was cool to ride through the tunnel part and see the bridge above.

I noticed from the distance markers that the end was nigh and felt sad the cycle trip was nearly finished. After a 1.5 km no stopping section because of rock fall danger, it opened out to run briefly beside a pine plantation with active logging and then travelled through farmland for the last few kilometres. It wasn’t anything like the beautiful beginning, although it really is the best direction to ride the trail in. All in all there was a lot of downhill, and it had felt like a pretty easy 82 km journey.

I’d been a bit worried about what kind of shelter would be here to stay in or next to tonight, but was excited to find a completely closed in little hut. It was pretty new, clean, and looked fine to sleep on the floor – saving me from setting up the tent outside next to it. The sun had really warmed it up, and I washed my muddy legs at the bike wash before farewelling my camp mates as they drove off.

There was even a bit of mobile reception, and I tried to catch up on more blog writing. A lovely candle provided nice ambience for dinner while listening to this podcast, as I tried not to fall asleep at 7pm! Outside on the nearby deer farm the stags were roaring reasonably relentlessly. Not a sound I can say I was familiar with before but certainly am now.

I’m really grateful for this shelter that’s a concrete example of Te Araroa trust money (largely raised through koha from those walking the trail) providing facilities for the trail. I can’t actually think of another example of this that I’ve come across…

Giving my legs a break, and experiencing more camaraderie by choosing to ride the Timber Trail rather than walk it is also a decision I’m really glad I made. If you don’t love biking, then maybe it’s better to walk. The change really refreshed me though, and certainly has given my feet more recovery time. This morning I took my first steps out of bed without wincing and feeling stiff and sore like I usually do. I didn’t need my bike shorts, and the tramping bag was just fine.

I’m going to enjoy the candle light a bit longer, sitting in my toasty sleeping bag while reading. I’m sure bed time isn’t far away though.