Te Araroa day 68 – Get me out of the forest!!
February 8th 2017
Parawai lodge - El Rancho holiday park
17.9 miles
Total distance: 1019.4 miles
There was something that sounded very large scuttling about outside the hut at around 2am. It sounded human size and it sounded like they were scraping at the door trying to get inside. To be honest it was pretty terrifying. It would have been horrendous if any of us had been there alone. Everyone else was asleep but Colin and I woke up to the noise, we heard whatever it was go onto the roof and then I heard the other door rattling. Colin shone his red light around the cabin and I felt like he had it all under control so I went back to sleep and tried to ignore the sounds.
In the morning we watched Sandy and Colin leave then we hiked out a little after them, I don't know how they get up so early every day! The day started with a big climb, my legs felt terrible, my left quad was so painful with every step. I took it slowly and plodded my way to the top. I tripped over tree roots, slipped on the mud and sweated profusely the whole way up.
It was getting colder and windier near the top and I had to put a layer on, Julia and Marcus were having a break and after a very quick snack Julia and I began the descent. My legs had warmed up a bit now and weren't quite so painful but they were still sore. We smelt a really nice smell, not sure what it was but it smelt like cherry blossom or something nice like that. I saw a long haired horned goat which was beautiful, but having seen nothing living for a while it startled me, and in return I startled it, so it ran off quickly into the forest. I was desperate just to get out of the forest now, out of the mud and away from the death traps and I went pretty quickly, in contrast to the climb. We slipped and tripped our way down and finally got to the bottom, crossed the stream, walked down a forest road and out onto a paved road to continue the 6 miles into town.
I was filthy and my legs were numb from the road walk but we had made it out of the death forest. We celebrated be getting a soda from the first shop we saw. Then we headed into town to get food. Pizza was the food of choice today, it was so good but didn't last long enough! We sat in the pizza place for a while then before going to New World to resupply for the next couple of days as we head into Wellington. We will be passing through civilisation so won't need to carry much. We realised we had walked 1000 miles today so I treated myself to a chocolate milk. We spent way too long in the supermarket, trying to find something nice for dinner and breakfast. I really wanted eggs and I ended up getting risotto rice, mushrooms and eggs with the plans of having half for dinner and half for breakfast.
We walked the last 3 miles to a holiday park near the coast. It wasn't as good as previous holiday parks, there was hardly anything in the kitchen to use so I ended up using a massive saucepan and cooking the eggs at the same time as the risotto. There were some nice people in there who let me use their knife and oil. I wasn't really hungry enough for what I made and didn't really enjoy it that much!
I threw a couple of bits in with Sandy and Colin's laundry, I will have to do the rest in wellington.
Too tired to write any more.