985 - 1056 Taumarunui
Left Bog Inn and headed for the next hut at 1003kms. Lots of fallen trees to walk around. And by trees, I mean big trees. Massive Rimu mostly.
Made it there at about 2:00pm and had barely sat down when a gaggle of school children and their associated teachers appeared. Definitely time to go.
After looking at the map I realised that if I went down another track I could skip the 32kms of road walking at the end of the forest which turned out to be a good decision as I got a lift after about half an hour straight there.
So, 27kms walked, the 1000km mark passed, a little bit of cheating, not much guilt, four less hamburgers in the world.
Hindsight
- If you can't find the trail backtrack until your last marker and try again.
- You get lonely but then you run into a group of people and you get going.
- Sometimes my map reading is shady. Taumaranui was only supposed to be 20km from where I hit the road and instead it was 100km.
- New Zealand is a small place. I was picked up by a friend of the people who own the airline that flies to Great Barrier.
Taumarunui Map
