Thursday 09.02.2023

• Te Araroa kilometres done: 1826.7km
• Official kms: 34.2km
• Garmin kms: 34.62km
• Total time: 8:23
• Calories burned: 2933
• Body battery: 7/10 better sleep last night.
• Accommodation: Laura & Woods house
• Tent nights tally: 14
• Zero days had so far: 15

https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/walking-te-araroa-3000km-for-the-key-to-life

Track me live here:

https://aus-share.explore.garmin.com/curtiss

I woke early this morning, the plan is to leave Lester’s Bach at 7:45am so I can start walking around 8am. Such an awesome place to stay the night! It’s been so much fun to spend the last 3 days with my cousin! Looking forward to him joining me again at some stage!

We packed the car & were ready to go on time, although the car was pretty packed!

After being dropped off & saying goodbye I set off from outside the Queen Charlotte tavern at 8:10am. The Link track has been upgraded since I last was on it 2 years ago with only about 1km on the road. It looks like they have nearly finished completing it.

A bit further along & I was at another Milestone. The 1800km point on the trail!

About 13km in for today & I was in Havelock. I stopped at the local Foursquare for an early lunch, some electrolytes & more water before tackling the last 21km of mainly road walking.

The rest of the day was fairly boring & I spent a lot of it working out what I’m going to do if this weather bomb is going to hit early next week. So my plan so far is I will walk out from Hackets hut Saturday afternoon to do a zero at my Aunts in Nelson, if weather isn’t great I will road walk to St Arnaud from there during next week. This is mainly because my brother Mark is flying down Monday 20th to do Nelson lakes with me so I need to be there by then. Since I’ve already done Richmond ranges I don’t feel so bad missing them if I’m still walking around them, but I will make the call on Sunday after checking weather forecasts.

I managed to finish right on 4:30pm & Woods was waiting there to pick me up.

We went back to his place & Laura made some amazing hamburgers for dinner! It was really good to sit around this evening & catch up with them!

My plan tomorrow is to start at 8am, I have a 27km day into Middy creek hut & 13km is on a slower trail so I hope to be there by 5pm tomorrow.