Pt2 Day 55. Mangakahu Rd to Taumarunui - 16/04/16

Having had such a great day's progress yesterday, we had a much more reasonable day ahead of us today than we might otherwise have had (if we had stopped at Hauhungaroa Hut).  Today we knew was around 28km of primarily steady downhill (from around 500m to 180m asl) walking on roads.  The day's GPS data is here.

 We got underway about 0700 setting off initially on gravel roads.  It wasn't all that long however, before we hit asphalt, which was to be our lot all the rest of the way to Taumarunui today.  We were passing through mostly farmland today, including past some more large maori land holdings.  As in other parts of the country, dairy has found its way into some of these parts as well, although much of the land is still better suited to sheep and beef.  The stock and lands were generally in good condition everywhere, which is always pleasing to see.

Not long after passing the Te Urunga unit, we saw a hiker walking in the other direction and, of course, stopped for a chat.  This turned out to be Kristoff (sp??) - a German nobo who is walking on his own also.  Talked for about half an hour, with Belinda managing to offload some of her sweet things (jet planes etc) onto Kristoff as we had almost finished!!  We also took the time to warn him of the fact that it was the roar and it would not be silly to find something colourful to either wear or put on his pack - just to be on the safe side heading into the Hauhungaroas and Pureora.

Starting off down the road - B full of energy!!

You can see the pumice layer from one of the Taupo eruptions.

A horse is a horse - of course.

A one-way split at the end of Mangakahu Rd!!

By 0817 we had reached the end of the gravel part of the day :-(

A green tractor - my favourite JD.

Lots of green beehives around the place.

And still more beehives.

Belinda took lots of photos of this "pimple" as we got closer to it. Doesn't appear to have a name on the topo maps!!

Exactly 2 hours of walking - and the first time ever we have done over 10 km!!

A horse (!!), covered yards, and the famous "pimple" on the skyline!

Hard to know how long this telephone pole will last with stock wearing away the mound.

Another of Belinda's little friends.

Original block size over 6000 hectares.

Might have been some of the original transport for the farm?!

The dairy shed across the road from the sign.

And some of the cows on the unit.

Posing with Kristoff.

And back on the road again.

After the chat with Kristoff we were off agin towards Taunmarunui.  We reached the Taumarunui Aerodrome about 1230 and stopped for a bite of lunch before the final stint of around 6km into Taumarunui township.  This was a pretty uneventful walk, but we did find a dairy on the way in and stopped for a real refuel (i.e. ice creams and sweet drinks!!

Lovely setting for a school. Among other things, the sign says this is halfway between Wellington and Auckland - 330km each direction.

Walking past the entrance to one of the biggish farms in the area.

Might be described by a real estate agent as a "do-er up-er"!

The "pimple" is still there but we are heading away from it now!!

A right royal fruit salad of sheep.

And this guy was practising take-off and landing several times while we lunched.

We did see a topdressing plane take off as we were a couple of kms away.

Another renovator's dream.

Civilisation beckons.

Fat and sugar top-up coming in to town.

Even in town Belinda can find a horse :-)

Main street of Taumarunui. Turns out I lost 12kg over 2 months but can still demonstrate a tummy over my belt :-)

We had booked a motel for the night and had also booked a bus home for tomorrow afternoon.  On that matter, we had hoped to book a train home for the experience, only to find that it no longer stopped at Taumarunui - this is sacrilege!!!  So we settled for Intercity buses as the only other option.  We arrived at our motel about 1400 - giving us time to rest, reorganise, clean clothes, repack and also to have a look around.

We later went to a local Thai restaurant just near the motel for a delicious dinner (and a couple of beers for me) as it was a while (Te Kuiti) since we had anything other than tramping food.  Taumarunui may not be a real go-ahead town, suffering as it is from rural town issues (closing businesses, declining population etc), but it can serve up some scrumptious Thai food.  It's amazing how much you can eat after a stretch in the bush!!  It was so popular that we were struggling to get a table.  Luckily a family of three from National Park kindly offered us the other end of their table - we spent a lovely evening chatting with Peter, his mum and partner while enjoying the food and beverages!!