• Te Araroa kilometres done: 810.4km
• Official kms: 25km
• Garmin kms: 26.10km
• Total time: 7.27
• Calories burned: 3086
• Body battery: 7/10
• Accommodation: tenting at campsite
• Tent nights tally: 8

Up before the alarm again this morning. I’m excited there is only 4 days to go before Christmas break & seeing Antonia. My body is also looking forward to having a few days off. I also know tomorrow is going to be a tough & long day, that has me a bit worried.

We said our goodbyes to Eve & the kids, Sam drove us back to our start point just before Whatawhata. It’s been amazing catching up & the food was outstanding! Thanks Sam & Eve!

We started off walking along road turning left at Whatawhata before a few kilometres of river track through farm. This was quite overgrown & muddy & had a lot of stiles that had to be crossed. I was glad to get back up onto the road after this!

We had about 8km of road walking that climbed up a few hundred metres before we started a farm track, which had amazing views in all directions. Oh & we reached the 800km point on our journey!

Gokul & I stopped for lunch around 12.30 just in the shade of the trees, listening to thunder in the distance, but no rain where we were.

Following lunch it was a steep descent down to meet a road again, which we would walk for over 3km.

The last 2.6km was a nice maintained 4wd track following the river to the Kaniwhaniwha campsite.

We arrived just before 3.30pm & set up & had a fairly early dinner around 5pm. But this was going to be an entree because….

Robyn called me just after 5 to say that they were going to get KFC, drive out to the car park & walk the 2.7km in to say hello with it. So awesome! Also very much appreciated as it will help with tomorrows big climb! Thanks Roger & Robyn.

8pm is bed time tonight, so I’m signing off. Let’s see how tomorrow goes.