Today -11.5km Raetea summit to campsite at km 153.2km

Total – 153.2

Well, today was really fun. While most people hate on the mud, I began to really enjoy it. That’s not to say it wasn’t challenging or frustrating at times, but overall it was a good day.

Just a shorter day today in order to break up the coming days as our campsites are limited. Raetea forest is a mix of Indiana Jones, the floor is lava, twister and a slip n slide.

I had originally thought to do a much bigger day but decided to chill and spend some more time with my new friends.

The Raetea forest is rugged and rough, and you can definately get lost in there. Quite often today I had to make sure I was following the right track, especially when there was an obstacle or two to climb around.

The track was pretty overgrown in places. It’s a mental game, really needing to concentrate at all times.

But no navigation difficulties and made it out of the forest in one piece.

Orange triangles mark the way, the trail was really well marked but you do need to stay alert and eyes up.

Met some other hikers today. Had a nice hour and a half rest while waiting for the others. It was nice to do the forest in a group to look out for each other, as one slip up or fall could leave you in a bad situation.

Classic NZ bush going up and down and up. And straight up and straight down. The bush is so pretty, and great bird life all around.

Rolling out of the forest we made good use of the first stream, and then continued on through farmland and about 7 barking dogs.

Camp for the night is at a sweet little spot at the end of Makene Rd. A local has made a beautiful little campsite, for walkers to stay at for koha/donation. Theres a river to wash all the mud and worries of Raetea forest away, an outhouse and a table by the river.

Theres a solid group of us here tonight and met some new people, a couple from the Netherlands, a Canadian, a girl from France, and a Kiwi/French couple as well as myself and Marie from Belgium, and Sarah & Aaron from the US.

It was either a further 6 km to camp at Mangamuka dairy or just finish the day a bit early and have a semi decent day of 18km the next day. So tommorrow we will head through to Apple Dam campsite.