• Te Araroa Day 55
• The Forest to Tongariro Holiday Park – 22.78km in 5 hours 50 minutes

I woke up at hiker time, around 6:30am. Looking around at the teenagers, I realised it might be a while before there were any signs of life. I didn’t have too far to go today, so figured starting later would be ok. After successfully snoozing a couple more hours, Brad woke up and asked if I wanted some coffee. We sat outside in the camp chairs facing the view, and chatted away as I added copious amounts of sugar and milk powder to my cup. It was delicious though, and our conversation covered a wide variety of topics from the environment and pest control, to parenting, hunting, tramping, New Zealand politics, my journey, and cryptocurrency! Eventually a teenager emerged, and I mentioned I should probably get going – even though I really didn’t want to leave secret hut world and this cool family! I was just going to eat one of my muesli/porridge bar things, but Brad insisted on quickly whipping up some bacon and eggs with toast for me. I said goodbye, feeling like all the thank yous in the world weren’t enough, and headed off back up the secret route to the main trail.

I walked along recounting in my head all the highlights of the last 24 hours, grinning away to myself. Two 4WD vehicles came racing around the corner and I leapt off into the scrub, glad I hadn’t been listening to music. After a while Te Araoa left the 42 Traverse to take a more obscure trail. Brad’s words were a bit ominous “oh, Cokers… didn’t know they still maintained that…”.

Lulled into a false sense of security, the first half hour wasn’t so bad. But the mud got worse, the scrub got more overgrown, and I couldn’t see how anyone would get a mountain bike through this trail… I regretted thinking the 42 Traverse trail was boring!

At the back of my mind I was still worried about finding the Mangetepopo Stream too high to cross, even though I knew there hadn’t been much rain of late. The track dropped sharply down to it, turned up and walked in the shallows for a bit on one side, then indicated the crossing point. It was about knee deep, and very cold. I could see that you wouldn’t want the water level to be too much higher. Looking upstream though, I saw 3 whio! It was the first time I’ve seen them in the wild. Too far away to get a good photo, I savoured the moment – for as long as I could stand in freezing water anyway. On the other side was where I had been planning to camp. There were a couple of small tent sized spots of grass but that was all. I hoped the trail might follow the stream for a bit so I could get a closer view of the whio but alas it veered off and climbed away. I learnt later that whio are even rarer than kiwi, with only 2000-3000 left in the wild.

There seemed to be a lot of steep climbing, on slippery clay from this point. Combined with drizzle, tiredness, and as the end of the track approached a sharp increase in huge puddles (mini lakes?), I was not enjoying the track at all and just wanted to get to the Tongariro Holiday Park.

I slipped into the cold muddy water a few times and swore loudly in frustration. I’d seen no one on this track, but there was a car at the end to my surprise. I’d come out on an empty road in the middle of nowhere, with signs for the Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre around but no people anywhere. It was gloomy, drizzling and cold. I put my rain pants on. A weird bleeping noise sounded nearby once, then again. Then walkie talkie noise, and around the corner came a really kind, smiley older man. He was from the Taupo Walking Club, and explained they were testing out a possible club outing. He’d been on the same track as me down to the stream, and seen the whio too. I desperately hoped he hadn’t heard me swearing!

The final part involved climbing over mānuka trees across the track in a way that almost felt like the trail was being blocked on purpose, but ploughing on it emerged at Te Pōrere redoubt. I’d never heard the word redoubt before, but learnt it is: a temporary or supplementary fortification, typically square or polygonal and without flanking defences. To be honest, in the mist, gloom and cold I found this place eerie. It is considered an urupa (cemetery) with a plaque where the human remains found were placed.

At the carpark I met the three other Taupo Walking Club members. It felt good to interact with smiling people after a lonely and somewhat trying afternoon. They kindly offered me a lift to the holiday park, but it was just a kilometre and to my joy there was a 50 metre wide grass verge beside the highway! I was practically skipping along I was so happy about not having to dive in a ditch periodically.

The holiday park looked dead, but Donna one of the owners popped up to check me in. I mentioned that they were holding a couple of parcels for me too, at which point Donna looked worried and said they hadn’t had any delivered. She explained at length how awful their postal situation was here (in the middle of nowhere) and things really weren’t sounding good for my food or new shoes. As she talked I was frantically wondering if I could stretch the food I had with me out for 3 or 4 days, and whether I’d ever see my new shoes again. I said I’d check on the tracking, and was relieved I had planned a rest day for tomorrow.

I was relieved to settle into a cabin though, and overjoyed when 5 minutes later Donna popped up with one parcel. It was the food! Her husband had put it aside as someone had dropped it in. Well, at least I could eat on the next leg now. Donna explained I was the only guest in the park tonight and she’d unlocked all the communal facilities. No wonder it had felt so dead.

There was no 2 degrees mobile signal here…Try as I might I could not get the Spark pay phone to work with my credit card or calling collect. I bought some internet and checked on the parcel tracking via messenger. The shoes had arrived in Tūrangi, but that was 24km away. Oh well, it would have to be tomorrow’s problem. The hot shower made almost everything better.

Later I learned why the Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre had rung a vague bell in my head. The terribly tragic canyoning accident where high school students from Auckland lost their lives was on the Mangetepopo Stream – the same one I crossed.