One last day in the Tararua Range brought substantially easier hiking and a road walk into Waikanae.
I woke up to heavy rain. (Or at least, it sounded heavy on the hut’s roof.) This delayed my departure, but not too much; the rain was short-lived, and by the time I was up and ready to go, the rain clouds were gone, though it was still overcast.
After crossing Waiotaru River via a short bridge, I was off along a gravel road for a little while, reaching a trailhead for the Pukeatua Ridge Route and beginning the day’s only substantial climb.
The track from the trailhead was very nice and well-formed for its first few kilometers, and I made pretty quick progress. Steepness aside, it only started to become more difficult after passing through a few interstitial meadows in the forest.
The trail eventually left the Tararua Forest Park, entering private property. Rather than a farm, this time it seemed to be land used for logging. The trail and forest were initially nice, until I reached the area that had previously been harvested; then the trail became exposed, and followed a logging road sometimes quite steeply down do a creek.
Despite managing to keep my feet dry in the many stream crossings this morning, I managed to dip my foot into the creek on the very last step of the rock-hop across.
After climbing up a bit on the hill on the other side of the creek, the trail reached a small parking lot and trail head. I stopped for a snack break.
For the next ten and a half kilometers, the trail followed a road, fortunately with very little traffic. Occasionally, there were some views, but not often. At least, it was mostly a gradual downhill.
The most annoying part of the roadwalk was realizing that, in two hours, I’d hiked further than I had on two of the three previous days, and easily 3-4 times what my average pace felt like all three of those days.
Once I made it into town, I stopped very briefly at a convenience store for ice cream and soda. After crossing the train tracks through town, I departed from the trail and made my way to Ariki Lodge Motel, where CareFree and Peter and Susanna had been waiting all day, sitting at a table outside their room drinking coffee and catching up.
After briefly chatting with Peter and Susanna, I retreated to our room to get a shower, while CareFree generously took care of laundry — after the Tararuas, nearly all of my clothes needed washing.
CareFree and I got pizza at a pizza place I saw on the way to the motel, because they had a special for Hawaiian pizza tonight.
Tomorrow, we’ll hike to Paekakariki, covering our last beach of the North Island. After that, it’ll just be a couple of days to Wellington, and the Southern Terminus of the North Island: after the Tararua Range, I am quite ready to be done with the North Island.