Day 67: North Island By The Numbers

December 16, 2019

Kilometers: 1695.5

YHA Wellington 

This morning Ethan left for the airport. After he left I called and got Peter, Charlie and myself a three bed room at the YHA hostel down the street for the next two nights. They said no one was in the room we booked last night so we could check in whenever. We packed up and walked over to the other hostel. On the way I reserved our ferry tickets to the South Island for Wednesday morning. 

I decided to use the morning to calculate some statistics for the north island. Here are some of the numbers so far:

65 days from Cape Reinga to North Island Southern Terminus. This included 8 zero days. Two in Kerikeri, two in Auckland, one in Taumarunui, one in Whanganui and two forced zero days in Levin due to weather in the Tararuas.  

1695.5 kilometers hiked on trail. We did more than this when adding in walking to and from things such as resupplies and accommodation. I hitched a total of zero kilometers of trail. Ethan hitched only 39 total kilometers of trail. 

Average distance hiked per day: 26.08kms (16.2 miles)

Average distance hiked not including zero days: 29.75kms (18.49 miles)

41,306.6 meters ascended  (135,520.3 feet ascended)

41,446.7 meters descended (135,799.9 feet descended)

Longest day- 43.1 kms on day 29 (58,451 steps taken via health app on iPhone) 

Breakdown of places slept:

Tents-33

Hostels/Hotels/Cabins- 27

Huts- 4

Other- 1 (Stillwater holiday park)

After doing some math I took a nap. When I woke up I walked over to the post office to pick up my bounce box from post restante. I brought it back to the room and decided to take another nap. 

Charlie and Peter went to return the raclette machine, buy some needed equipment and hike another portion of the trail from Mt Kaukau to the hostel. They will finish the last bit of the north island tomorrow. I didn’t do much while they were gone, just watched NFL redzone and Netflix.

When they got back Peter and I headed to the grocery to get ingredients for dinner. I also bought some more dinner food for the resupply boxes we will be setting up and sending tomorrow. 

Peter made another feast, the appetizers were avocados filled with small shrimp and a great dipping sauce. The main course was a yellow chicken curry with rice. 

After a late dinner we tried to go to the bowling alley but they were closed. Things don’t stay open too late here in Monday’s. We returned to the hostel for bed instead. Tomorrow we have a bunch of work to do on our South Island food boxes that we need to ship ahead for ourselves.