Suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of the North Island. Northland north of Auckland was characterized by beaches, bays, and road walk (well, road walk describes the trail on the entire North Island); the stretch to Hamilton by walking through suburban and urban areas and crossing a lot of farmland. Leaving Hamilton already felt like a start to a new chapter on TA, like the unknown on the way to the volcanic plateau and the Whanganui River Journey. This “unknown” especially between Te Kuiti and Taumarunui, started with a river section that had a specific reputation of being quite sketchy because of erosion. After some discussion, we decided to detour this section with a slightly longer road walk. So, after a long day in the heat and sun along a tarmac road, we returned to TA on a gravel road along a stream. As we still had a couple hours of daylight, we decided to continue and hope for a good camp spot instead of backtracking to a private campsite a few kilometers back on the trail. The early evening was still hot and pretty humid. It didn’t help that we ran out of water while walking along a stream that was not accessible due to thick thorns growing on the slopes down to the water. We kept going until we eventually decided to knock on the door of a farmhouse and ask for water and a place to pitch our tent. The guy living in the relatively poor-looking house looked at us in astonishment but offered us to take as much water as needed, pitch our tent in his front yard, and use his restroom. We were overwhelmed and happy about so much hospitality!
After a peaceful night, we kept road walking through a landscape of green rolling hills dotted with cattle and sheep until we reached a campsite and cabins at the entrance to Pureroa Forest Park that marks the start of the 84-km-long Timber Trail. This is a well-maintained and groomed MTB trail that is part of TA. We enjoyed a long chat with Francis and her husband, who ran the place and then got to bed early. We planned on hiking the Timber Trail in two days and, therefore, wanted to get a relatively early start. The trail turned out to be excellent: we could keep up a nice and fast pace and got to enjoy a lot of native forest and many birds around us. A side trail led up to the summit of Mount Pureora, from where we could see Lake Taupo. The second day on the Timber Trail was filled with exciting highlights: a couple of quite long and high-up suspension bridges span over valleys, and displays about the interesting history of the timber industry in the area made hiking quite entertaining. Unfortunately, in the second half of the day, we had to endure massive downpours, which made it hard to enjoy the surroundings; however, a last highlight along the trail was a spiral carved into and through the mountain for a railway back in the days when timber was transported out of the forest. It is hard to imagine the whole country before industrial deforestation started. In 1840, still two-thirds of Aotearoa were covered in forests; with the influx of settlers needing farmland, more and more forests were logged.
Wet but happy, we made it to the road, to the terminus of the timber trail, where the trail association created a small shelter and campground for hikers and cyclists. There, we met up again with Peter and Susanna, who we had last seen north of Auckland. Time to catch up and share stories!
The last kilometers into Taumarunui the next day, we hiked in the rain and only stopped to FaceTime home to Germany for Christmas Eve. Oh, I almost forgot: we crossed the 1000-km-mark!