Day 60: Palmerston North to Burtton's Track
Distance Covered: 32 km
Today was much better than what the last three days have been. Yes, there was road walking, but the short trails were actually trails and, at the end of the day, we made it into the mountains.
It started with picking up our stealth camp early. No problems from anyone, if anyone even saw us. Then a walk across the bridge where we found a large sign installed by the city outlining the Te Araroa trail in this area and proclaiming the city’s support for it. That’s nice to see. And, shortly after the bridge, the University sponsors an extensive forest Park area with trails. It was a little sad in one area because the steep climb to a viewpoint led to a brand new subdivision up there instead with just a fence to look at. But otherwise, it was great! Switchbacked trail, wide pathways, bridges, signs indicating the flora. Very nice.
Just at the end of it, we happened to run into four hikers. One mentioned that the new forecast was for a “Big Storm” headed our way in a few days. We had planned to take a day off in a town called Levin in two days, but were told maybe we should look into changing our plans. Hmm…
We made a quick jump off the trail to buy food for a couple of days. How we love buying and eating all of the delicious things on this trip.
And then we were back on the trail and starting to climb into the city foothills. We made a couple of forays into local areas sponsored by various city clubs or the city itself as part of a green corridor initiative. The trails were rough in places, but we have a deep appreciation for the kind of volunteer effort required to accomplish as much as they have.
Then up and up on a busy gravel road towards the trailhead for the next section. The trails are owned by the city and are for pedestrians as well as mountain bikers. This latter use is a very good sign that the trails will be great. Wide, smooth, using switchbacks, graveled, and bridges.
We made it up there in the middle of the afternoon. Locals chatted with us about the Te Araroa and the upcoming trail. Parents wanted their kids to meet us. Also, they said this year was unusually cold and rainy. Talking with people about their lives here is endlessly fascinating for us.
The trail did not disappoint. It was everything we were missing the last few days with good views and a feeling of being “on the trail” again. Ahh…
The nice city trail ended after a few km’s, putting us on a dirt road for a little while. We followed this around, with virtually no traffic, until we ended up in a valley looking at a gate. We were about to enter a logging area, it said, and no unauthorized people were allowed past it. But then it had a Te Araroa sign and a little walk around on the side of the bridge. We figured we were authorized.
We were running low on water about this time. We decided to stop at the next option. This ended up being a creek running from a logged area. We took the time to filter it and were surprised to find that it was distinctly brown. Hmm… I tasted it and it was… oily. Hmm…
So we went on. But every creek for a couple of km had the same brown tint. Our best theory was that it was essentially “tea”. Perhaps the logging created a lot of downed vegetation that was leeching into the water. With all of the rain we had for the last couple of days it seemed possible that tannins were in the water. That’s what we chose to believe anyways since, an hour later and time for dinner, we had to use it. We both filtered it and boiled it for five minutes. Apparently, whatever is in the water is not strong enough to kill us on a timescale that we care about today.
We climbed out of the valley, hoping there would be better water sources in the next valley. We didn’t make it there as the sun was setting quickly behind the ridge. We did make it to the start of Burtton’s track. It’s not clear how the track will be once we get off the logging road and onto the forest trail (past data trends to lots of mud and no flat areas) so we’ve got ourselves setup in a little clearing just before the stile.
Oh, and today we passed the 1,500 km mark! It was along the city park trail called Backtrack. The whole trail is just over 3,000 km so this is also the halfway point. Crazy. It feels like just yesterday that we passed 1,000 km.
Tonight, I managed to get service from the top of the peak we are camped on. In the evening of three days from now, the forecast is for a lot of wind and rain. It says about 9 cm of rain and winds up to 90 km/hr (4-5 inches and 50+ mph). It doesn’t get better for four days it says. It’s going to tear up the already muddy trails so we think we need to try to get through this whole mountain range as fast as possible. If we take the day off in Levin in two days like we planned then we’ll get caught on the wrong side of it all. A lot of things have to go right in order to make it work, but we may be able to get through just in time.
Tomorrow we will try to crush through some forest tracks so we can get to Levin in one day. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow too (but little wind) so that will be a challenge. But, you know, we’ve walked through so much cold rain lately that maybe it won’t be too much of a hindrance.