Pt2 Day 49. Waitomo to Te Kuiti - 10/04/16

We knew it was a relatively easy day today so there was no real rush to get away.  TA says it was 16km but we ended up doing over 19km including a detour up to the 263m trig just before descending into Te Kuiti, and to do some supermarket restocking once we hit Te Kuiti.  You can see this on the GPS data for the day, which is here.

We set off just before 0800 to head a short way east down the road out of Waitomo before turning south onto Fullerton Rd.  I had paused the Suunto at the campsite and forgot to restart again until about 10 minutes into the walk so the first bit shows a straight line rather than the actual walk down to Fullerton Rd!!  You'd think my memory would be better by now!!

After the first km on the road, we branched off onto some farmland for a bit of "up and down" for another km before heading up on a narrow track into some scrubby hills for yet another km before coming out into yet more farmland!!

On to Fullerton Rd - about when I remembered to restart the Suunto for our trip data!!

Over first stile into farmland - note my obvious affinity with the horse!! :-)

The first bit of farm walk had paddocks full of these fellas. I'm not one for stereotyping but I am always very cautious around Jersey bulls - their reputation is not always the best!

More bulls in the distance - but we survived!

Baled silage everywhere these days. This was just before we headed off up into some gorse and scrub covered hills for a bit.

This was a short stretch of farmland before heading into another 2.5km or so of hills covered in scrub / newly regenerating bush.  The link above to the Suunto GPS data provides a good map (if you turn on satellite view) of the type of territory we were going through.  Indeed, I have to go back to it to remind myself (along with photos) what we went through, as I am writing this 2 weeks later!!

Narrow little track up through scrubby bush - with the odd remnant pine tree.

Gorse wasn't everywhere in this stretch.

But it was around amongst the regenerating natives.

The gorse will soon be smothered out all going according to plan.

Very pretty as the native starts to take hold.

Then it was mainly on farmland until after about 6.5km we crossed a small swingbridge into the Pehitawa Kahikatea Forest Reserve.  It's incredible how many of these little reserves are dotted around the countryside in random places that you would never find out about unless you were walking past.  I guess that is part of what Te Araroa is all about.  We stopped here for a bit of a smoko break before heading off through the reserve - only about a 700m walk in total.  ​

Had to walk about 400m through a brassica crop at one stage.

As an agricultural scientist you might think I should know what this is?? My best guess is a swede but I wouldn't stake my life on it!

Occasionally your choice is toooo easy! Stile or open gate??

The electric fence "two-step". Luckily for B it was quite low - times like that I am glad to have very long legs!!

Shows you how moist it is in this part of the country. Electric fence poly-wire - the fence was going!

And in the middle of all this someone pointed out that we had passed the TA 900km mark. Although it can change from year to year, so it may not be the same spot next year!

In the middle of the two stiles is a plank for a bridge across this drain

A 10 for style?? One legged plank crossing :-)

Swingbridge into Pehitawa Reserve.

The nearby stream obviously floods through here as the vegetation has that water-flattened look throughout.

It was wet underfoot all day so the bridge step made a nice seat for smoko.

Great info sign about the reserve.

A well colonised kahikatea.

Kahikatea are really lovely trees.

Helped by a very nice track = comfortable walking.

And one of B's fungi for a bit of variety!

Most of the short walk was similar to this.

After that it was up and down over some lovely farmland, including a walk down yet another farm airstrip, before getting to a trig which was about 2km from the main highway in Te Kuiti.  As noted, we took a side trip up to the trig (the trail heads past it about 25 vertical metres below) for some great views down to Te Kuiti and of the surrounding countryside.  ​​

Then it was back onto farmland.

Photo taken at 1110 - that's Te Kuiti 3.5km away, but we have a very indirect TA route (more up and down!) to get there - in fact, another 8km to go our way!

Heading down then up to the right of the house on the hill in background. Walking through californian thistles quite regulary. As you might be able to see in the background, this had been recently limed.

Close up of some of the calis we were walking through!

A surprising amount of flatter land to go with the hills.

Still showing great style :-)

Its always good to have little bridges across the larger drains and waterways!

Walking on these races was kind on the feet.

Dairy cattle grazing the hills.

Still sheep around of course - these ewes had a suffolk or south suffolk ram with them.

Christmas dinner anyone?

Confusion here with mismatch between notes, GPS track and route markers. Took a while but we ended up heading sharp left back up a hill in the general direction of the trig!

Me heading up to the trig sans pack! I'm not tired - honest! - just admiring the beautiful tower (Tui ad?)!

Looking west of north more or less from whence we came!

A little more north in this shot - we came up the farm track from the left and are heading down it to the right. Those are our packs by the fence, lovely lunch spot!

The long arm of the selfie! Te Kuiti in the background.

And Te Kuiti below us - looking east from the trig.

Into the Brook Reserve.

Resident turkey, she actually had one little chick she was carefully looking after.

Pleasant scenery - and flattish to boot!

That's the trunk of the plane tree to the left centre.

Stopped for a chat with these firewood-collecting locals.

Interesting story of Colin Brook and early "green" farming practices.

A rustic gate that took B's fancy.

SH3 Te Kuiti. The bags from the supermarket felt heavy - then we remembered that most of it was going to be in our packs by tomorrow morning!!

We were so keen to get to the motel we were really speeding along!! :-)

Then it was down the hill and briefly into some pines before meeting up with one of the trails in Te Kuiti's Brook Park Reserve.  This reserve is a great asset to the town.  There is a photo above showing an information board telling about the guy that originally set it up.  We chatted briefly about TA to a couple of locals who were collecting firewood from a large London plane tree that had come over and was being chopped up.

A very pleasant walk through this reserve saw us emerge onto SH3 towards the north end of town.  We had to take a short detour north here to the New World supermarket for a restock - us walking around the supermarket is the "birds nest" looking GPS trail showing on the map at the north end of town!!!

Then it was a 1.5km hike, with our shopping bags as well, down to the motel we had booked for the night.  This enabled us to repack all our food supplies etc as we now had a 6 or 7 day stretch through to Taumarunui, via Pureora with no resupply options along the way.