• Te Araroa kilometres done: 785.4km
• Official kms: 33.4km
• Garmin kms: 34.14km
• Total time: 9.02
• Calories burned: 3359
• Body battery: 7/10 still feel slightly exhausted from yesterday.
• Accommodation: Sam & Eves house
• Tent nights tally: 7

This morning we left Sam & Eves not long after 7am as Sam was doing a big loop to drop us off before driving back to work. We got dropped off in Ngāruawāhia & started walking at 8am after a quick resupply for the next 4 days.

The river walk was beautiful & I soon pumped out 21km before having a break, this took me til lunchtime (12.30pm) & the 1st thing I did was go into Farmers & buy myself a new pair of hiking pants as the ones I’m wearing are getting worn out.

Gokul & I caught up with Sam for lunch just before 1pm. Gokul had Indian & Sam & I had sushi.

After lunch it was into the Athletes foot to get a new pair of shoes. My current ones are not going to get me over Pirongia & I have 2 brand new pairs at home but I do need something today so unfortunately had to fork out a few hundred dollars to get some. 😞

After an extra long break, having lunch & buying pants & shoes an hour and a half had gone by so it was time to hit the trail again. It took about 10km to walk out of the suburban areas of Hamilton & reach track & farm track. We finished at the 785.5km point & sat & waited for Sam who picked us up & drove us back to his place.

The evening was spent making up the next 4 day’s worth of food. Getting some washing done & having another amazing meal with the family! I then called Antonia who sounds a little better than yesterday so that makes me feel a bit better.

We are being dropped back to today’s end point tomorrow & will be hiking to a camp site to spend the night. Back to roughing it again & eating hiking food.

It’s been amazing spending time with Sam, Eve & the kids. They have been amazing hosts!