Tomorrow, we leave for the trail. That means today, we needed to pack.
After repackaging my food, it felt like there was far less of it than there “should” be, but I’m pretty sure that’s because I decided to drop the tuna packets I’ve used on every hike since the Long Trail in 2017.
We set up our new three-person Big Agnes Tiger Wall tent for the first time on our balcony, mostly to make sure we’d be able to on the trail. it was rather windy out, which gave us good practice conditions since it’ll probably be windy on the trail as well. I was a little disappointed to discover the tent isn’t entirely free-standing. Unlike the Copper Spur I had on the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail, which only required staking out the vestibule doors, the corners at the foot of the Tiger Wall also need to be staked out. I don’t imagine this will be much of a problem on-trail, but it’ll be a tiny bit of a nuisance.
It didn’t take too long to pack my pack; everything was already organized before I left home, so after organizing my food, I just needed to put everything back in my pack.
Tomorrow, we get up early. We have a 7:30 am bus at Auckland’s Sky Tower that will take us to Kerikeri further north. From there, we’ll change busses and head to Kaitaia. We should arrive there a little after 2 pm.
A few hours after that, we should be at the northern terminus of Te Araroa, ready to start our next epic-length hike!