Saturday 15.04.2023

• Te Araroa kilometres done: 2902.5km
• Official kms: 0
• Garmin kms: 18.66km
• Total time: 4:10
• Calories burned: 1216
• Body battery: 7/10
• Accommodation: Merriview hut.
• Tent nights tally: 19
• Zero days had so far: 32

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Even though I wasn’t in a rush today, I was the first to wake up. I was out of bed at 5:30am as I couldn’t fall back asleep.

Today I am doing a detour as I’m still doing one continuous line from top to bottom but detouring around the Longwoods as I have a few little injuries that I can’t afford to aggravate & the way to do that is to walk the road on the west side of the official TA trail. Otherwise I would be doubling back tomorrow.

This is only going to be 18km where is the official to my destination is 27km which I will pretty much be adding on tomorrow.

I was the last to leave along with Scott, Brooke & Hamish. We walked together for the first 500 meters before I turned right & they turned left.

From here I put in my headphones & blasted music for the 4 hours ahead. Nothing special today, just sealed road & farmland. Although the view further west of the mountains looked spectacular with today’s clear blue sky.

I reached the 5 bed Merriview hut at 12:30, just in time to dry everything out as my water bladder had burst & started leaking about 1.5km before reaching the hut. Luckily I should be able to do without it from this point onwards.

One by one everyone started showing up & we have 3 in the hut tonight & 3 opting to sleep out under the stars. This is my last night on the trail in a hut! From this point onwards I have accomodation booked all the way through to Bluff.