Te Araroa Day 2

Set off feeling ok not 100%. Met a French couple Nico and Lucy who were also doing the Te Araroa. They said I made the right decision to not do Bluff. It was a min dumbing 30k road. Quite warm today. No signal still, I guess it might take a few days. Heading toward my first interesting looking ascent 

Near to the start of the climb I met a guy called Kevin hawkes, who does is heavily involved with the trail. He kindly volunteered himself to drop off some food for me! I kind of heard of the hospitality of the kiwis and never quite believed it. Kevin advised me the next part would be tough and to possibly stay at martins hut at the top. I said initially I should be fine. But he was right. Also I didn't help that it finally started raining and hasn't stopped..

The forest before the rain

The forest also contained various opportunities for SUDDEN DEATH in the form of dug out canals. The area was once used for mining gold. So every 800meters you found things like this, or worse. One just had a piece of rope

Any way, this is all in a fairly random order. Hut life ain't so bad

About 22km with loads of switch backs so maybe more

8hrs