Day 41: Jo’s Funny Farm to Waitomo

By Elliot

Distance: 37km

It’s amazing how being on the trail makes everyday things seem like miraculous luxuries. Cotton towels seem banal, until you are mostly limited to using pack towels that do a better job smearing water around than drying you. Kettles simplify life so much, allowing tea on demand. Normal bowls, plates and cutlery elevate any meal compared to a camping mug.

Knowing that today was going to be long, we got up around 5:30am, and were on the road by 7. We were in high spirits, and were relaxed about the kilometres we needed to walk because we had given ourselves ample time. But then, 15 minutes later, I was crushed. We’d been walking in the wrong direction, and on a paved road at that. We had to turn around, and walk uphill all the way back to our accommodation, where we should have gone down the gravel track. And so our 35km day became 37km. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, and then skip today’s walk and hitch to our destination. But in the end I didn’t do that, which is good, because the trail was really nice.

The trail varied a lot today, going from gravel track to bush to track to forest. We crossed grass airstrips and streams, and of course, we navigated a little bit of mud. We even saw Mount Tongariro in the distance, which is exciting as we are eventually going to be walking next to it.

It took us 10h 45min to reach Waitomo, where we are staying in a holiday park, so even though we are tenting to tonight, we got to take nice hot showers.