Day 34: Air Bull

November 13, 2019

Kilometers: 805.8-834.5

Pahautea Hut to Farm Campsite 

All eleven people in the hut were awake and getting ready for the day by 6:45am. I was ready pretty quickly and started off from the hut alone wanting to get the hard part of the day out of the way quickly. By 7:40am I was at the Hihikiwi summit. I turned my phone off airplane mode to realize I had service and enjoyed the view while catching up on some messages. The 360 degree view was limited to about 180 degrees as clouds covered the mountains to the west.

From there the way was down. The next five kilometers were a slippery muddy trail descending 400 meters. The trail notes said to be prepared to move only 1.5km per hour. Luckily we were able to traverse through the shin high mud rather quickly. Peter and I made it to the bottom and napped while waiting for the other two. 

Many people we had talked to claimed that Pirongia was just as bad if not harder than Raetea Forest. However, all four of us agreed that Pirongia wasn’t that bad at all, but breaking it up into two days surely made a difference. 

Once at the bottom we began our road walking section for the day. The walk was on gravel roads and provided us with nice views of the valleys, ocean and farmland as we were still at about 500 meters of elevation. 

The very beginning of our road walk was quite exciting. We turned a bend to find a bull that seemed to be out of its correct pasture. Obviously a young one, it was extremely scared of us and was trying to find a way back into the paddock. Not being the Einstein of the animal kingdom, it ran into barbed wire fence twice before realizing the only way through was over. This dude got some serious air and jumped his front half over the fence getting stuck on top of the fence with about half of himself over. Another two kicks off the ground with his back legs and he was over. The fence was about three feet high and the barbed wire definitely pierced the animals skin but he walked away like nothing happened. Our takeaway: the fences here are more like guidelines for them instead of actual barriers. 

The last six or so kms of the day we’re through a hybrid farmland/forest track. It started on farmland that had some amazing views of the rolling hills. At some points the wind on the ridges was so strong we could lean all our weight towards the wind and not fall over forward due to its strength. I had to adjust my hat from casual setting to wind setting (tightening it one notch). The track eventually turned into a forest track that once again forced us through a bunch of thick mud. 

We reached the stream we had planned to camp at for the night. However it was muddy and there was no where to pitch a tent. We followed the trail notes to a potential camping spot 400 meters up the trail. When we found the spot we were still unimpressed. Charlie’s face on the right says it all. 

We decided to walk another 1.5km out of the forest onto farmland to camp. We knew this would mean no close by water source but we’re fine with that to escape the muddy forest. 

Once we got to the campsite I had myself a liter shower. A liter shower is when you enlist a friend (yes my friend is Ethan in this case) to pour half a liter of water over you using a nalgene water bottle, soap yourself up, and then have your friend pour the rest of the water over you. It’s a simple yet effective cleaning process for when you’re not camping near a water source. We have carried extra liters of water up mountains a few times this trip already for our liter showers. Super ultra light hikers would laugh at carrying extra weight for that purpose. They can laugh all they want as long as they keep a solid distance between them smelly selves and us clean guys. 

Since we got to camp early we all rested in our tents for a bit before making dinner. Charlie and Peter made fun of us as we cooked our rice and salami for the 4085th night in a row. However, they ended up the losers of dinner because they made their chili con carne wayyy to spicy and ended up crying due to the heat and not being able to eat it all. 

Done with dinner and dishes at 7 we were all too impatient to wait for the sun to disappear and hopped in our tents. Tomorrow we push 36km into the town of Te Kuiti so we will be waking up early.