• Te Araroa kilometres done: 882.4
• Official kms: 14.4km
• Garmin kms: 17.19km (the map has changed again & there’s a new route)
• Total time: 5.18
• Calories burned: 2796
• Body battery: 8/10
• Accommodation: Motel in Otorohanga
• Tent nights tally: 10

This morning Antonia & I are leaving her dads place after 2 really restful days & going to Tauranga to pick up a rental car, as well as buy some new poles, a bite valve for my Osprey bladder & a sleeping bag liner for Antonia.

After this we will drive back to Waitomo, Antonia will drop me off & I will walk the Te Araroa trail to Te Kuiti where she will pick me up.

We have the rental car for 10 days & Antonia will drop me off & pick me up each day & take me back to accommodation we have booked, this will make the next 10 days quite nice. As I will only carry what’s needed for the day making my pack lighter.

Update on my airmat, it had 4 holes in it! Hopefully this is now repaired & my next sleep on it should be good.

After collecting the rental car & picking up the hiking supplies we drove to Waitomo caves arriving just after 12, where we ate lunch before I started out just before 1pm.

It started off extremely hot, my Garmin Tempe gauge was registering over 33 degrees! This made the climb’s difficult!

Todays route was undulated, mainly through farm & over a lot of stiles.

I seemed to keep losing the track today & had to really concentrate on where the next marker was & keep looking at my maps. About 4km before Te Kuiti the Severe Thunderstorm warning that I had heard about that morning had reached above me. On went the raincoat & pack cover & then came the rain! I was drenched as it was not normal rain but extremely large & heavy!

It only lasted about 30 minutes or so before moving from above me, at this stage I was glad as the lightning seemed very close at times! The last climb took me 250 metres above sea level & was over 100 metres of elevation gain but the views down to Te Kuiti was worth it!

I walked the final couple of kilometres down to New World where Antonia was waiting to pick me up. We went to the local Chinese takeaways to grab dinner to take home & then set off to get out of my wet clothes & get organised for a 30km+ day tomorrow.

It’s bittersweet to be back on the trail, it was really good having a few days off & also spending time with Antonia & Phil. I’m glad Antonia is with me for the next few weeks & looking forward to doing Whanganui river with her.