Pt2 Day 39. Mercer to Rangiriri - 31/3/16

Had a reasonably leisurely start today, leaving at 0845 after a final chat with Sandra.  It wasn’t a long or hard hike today so that gave us a bit of flexibility.  Ended up doing about 25km to the Rangiriri Hotel, arriving about 1700.  The day's GPS track is here.  

While we knew most of the day was fairly flat, it started with a walk over SH1 on the overbridge and into some scrubby hills on the western side of SH1 - the Whangamarino Redoubt track.  We headed up into the hills and immediately found ourselves doing a circle in the gorse!! Somehow we must have missed a marker - not a good start after yesterday afternoon's mistake!! Luckily this one was not huge and only cost us 10-15 minutes!

Headed off on the right track again following the trusty orange markers more closely - up and down hills, through scrub, pasture and swampy bits. Had some good views of the Whangamarino wetlands which is apparently the second largest wetland complex in the North Island (no idea which is the largest. There's a quiz question!!).

Back on to east side of SH1 on the overbridge.

Looking back at Mercer with Podge's Place in the centre.

Someone didn't want us to know how far it is!! I suppose we can refer to the trail notes :-)

Yep - there is a trail in there somewhere!!

Again, that's our trail - but at least there is a view back down to the mighty Waikato!

Wherever there is a hill, TA likes to take you up it!

And through swampy bits as well - we had to pick our way across to the hill in the background.

Looking back on one of the swampy bits.

A little bit of gorse and toetoe - not unusual on parts of this section. Pity the poor people who are first through in springtime!!

Views south into the heart of the Waikato!

At the end of this bit was the Whangamarino Redoubt - the remains of a British garrison used during the Waikato wars to house troops and the guns used to pound a Maori stronghold  a couple of kms away near Meremere.  Then it was down again, under the rail and road bridges and walking alongside SH1 for a couple of kms to Meremere.  Once at Meremere, we got away from SH1 onto the banks of the Waikato River - with the trail notes saying to carry on "as close as practicable to the river"!!

Easier for you to read about it than to repeat it in the blog text!!

Quite a clever way of giving you some perspective of the situation at the time.

Coming down from the redoubt. Flood protection systems in place to maintain the integrity of all the drained wetlands that are now farmed.

Close up of the Whangamarino floodgate.

Back under SH1 to the western side again!!

A couple of kms of walking alongside SH1 to Meremere - at least we could get off the hard stuff (asphalt)!!

This track essentially followed the river to Rangiriri. Walking was a mixture of stopbanks and farmland with occasional swampy areas. We also had a couple of smallish hills to climb (30m or so only!) along the way where it was not possible to walk right along the river - this did at least allow for more views on occasions.  As the photos show, it also gave us the opportunity to bash through more gorse!!  This took us past the old Meremere power station, the old dragway and stock car tracks just south of Meremere, and on toward Rangiriri.

It was about 17km from Dragway Rd to Rangiriri and most of this was on stopbanks, with an occasional switch into a rural road that ran parallel.  Like earlier stopbanks, most of these are farmed so sometimes they are quite smooth and other times they can have longer grass and/or more rutted surfaces where cows have been traipsing along them - so variable going.

Meremere dragway / speedway complex. Today was cow racing day obviously.

You can see the helicopter in the previous photo - this was it reloading at the dragway - spraying somewhere to the north.

That's the track heading down the fenceline through the gorse ......

..... and emerging through more gorse at the bottom of the hill!!

Remember the notes said "as close as practicable to the river"?? This bit was pretty close.

This was better walking!!

Another swampy area. Somehow we missed a bit of boardwalk here, so probably got a bit muddier than necessary!!

Better walking again :-)

A fungal interest shot to break up the landscapes!!!

And lots more stopbank walking as well.

Lovely shelter for the cattle.

Some good stands of kahikatea along the way.

Not native, but impressive (large oak)!!

Just to prove I was there!

Koi carp are a pest fish in the Waikato River - there were lots of them to be seen in parts.

Have no idea what I was pointing at!!

Not all dairy cattle!!

B found a horsey establishment to take a shot of as we neared Rangiriri :-)

As we got to Rangiriri, there were massive roadworks (yet more new bits of the Waikato Expressway) which caused us some confusion in terms of how to actually get to the Rangiriri hotel where we had elected to stop for the night!  Eventually we sorted it out - having to shoot across SH1 (!!) and then alongside it, behind an Armco barrier, for about 400m to turn off to the pub.  The pub was a real old-fashioned variety accommodation. Old stairway up to a series of old but tidy enough rooms, passageway that sloped distinctly etc... The beer tasted good however, and our pub meal was great - so all in all not a bad experience!!

Front of Rangiriri Hotel as we were leaving the next morning.

Our quaint little room.