Day 36: Rangiriri to Ngaruawahia Lookout

Distance Covered: 31 km

We were hoping for another fruit pie or two this morning, but alas, there was no more fruit. Cereal with reconstituted coconut milk it is, again.

Hiking started with following cool signs installed by the city to the start of the next section. Unfortunately, the signs were wrong. There’s a lot of construction in the area, so maybe they will point the right way in the near future. Meanwhile, we walked in a big circle. Back to the GPS!

Now on the right trail, it was stopbank walking again. They were pretty good for the most part and 16 km just zipped by. The views were good too and we’ve been enjoying the open terrain.

We showed up in Huntly, site of one of the largest coal plants on New Zealand. The smoke stacks are so tall we could see them from the start of the day. They were like a beacon guiding us in. They were having an employee appreciation day with a big party. The food smelled delicious, but it was all behind tall fences and security shacks.

So on into the town where we each bought $10 lunches from the local take away. These ended up being huge and each could easily feed two hikers. Leftovers for dinner for us. We took our time eating the first round in a small park, using our umbrellas to try to stay cool in the sun.

From there it was more road walking, this time with a hiker from New Zealand.

And this led up a dirt road to where a trail angel hosts hikers for free. We thought about it, but it would mean a 22 km day and it was still early afternoon. We need to average 25 km a day to meet our schedule and we both were feeling good, so we moved on.

Moving on meant a serious climb into the mountains southwest of Huntly. The sign proudly proclaimed 1,500 stairs were built. That is a big number of stairs! And the pride they took in it was well deserved as the trail up to the lookout on the north side of the range was top notch. Well maintained with rest areas and switchbacks on top of stairs. The views were great too… it was especially fun to see the Huntly power station’s smoke stacks so far away again from the opposite side. It helps to see the distance at the end of the day instead of just feeling it!

Locals we passed on the trail warmly invited us to camp at any of the rest areas or lookouts. They also said that the trail changed to roots and mud at the top for the traverse to the southern end of the range and it would take a few hours to do it. It’s great to meet such kindness and get trail notes.

Still feeling great, we passed up the campsites and decided to do the traverse. Emily took the lead in this section and she set a great pace. The roots were thick in places and the undulating path meant many climbs and descents through these roots. Short of trying to run it, I don’t think we could have gone much faster.

There were a couple of camping options in the bush that we could have made work. There was still light, though, and we were feeling good so we kept pushing. On we went and then, when we were getting tired, there were no camping options. The forest was too dense. We did pass one hiker who made a small clearing work, but she had a one-person tent. It worked out for us in the end. We pushed all the way to the southern end of the trail to the (awesome) lookout. 

The image below shows the ridges we traversed today. Just to the left of the farthest ridge are the orange smoke stacks of the power plant.

At the top, we found two other hikers who were going to sleep on the lookout once the locals stopped climbing up the mountain. The hikers also had three jugs of water that one local had carried up to train with and left for them to share. This was great since there were no other water options on the trail since the mountains started and we were running low.

Interesting to us was how many locals kept showing up. The advertised 1,500 stairs were actually for the town below the southern end to get to the lookout. And people kept coming. They said it’s like the local gym and it’s free. They really took advantage of it as even as the sun set they were still climbing. Really cool.

Tomorrow we will head down all of those stairs and get to Hamilton, New Zealand’s fourth largest city.