After staying in the honest new zealandic town of Levin, trying out my tent for the first time, stocking up on some supplies and preparing myself by buying hut tickets I went of for a short hike on the Te Araroa track. This track is going through the whole of the northern and southern island. The weather was not perfect but not to bad either.
After the first kilometers in the road I met another hiker chatting with two newzealanders (commonly known as kiwis). I kept hanging out there for half an hour chatting with a widely tattooed guy about Berlin before heading on. It got a little wetter in the way while walking between cozy looking wooden houses with sheeps in the front garden.
Right at the beginning if the the trail I heard a horn from a car and suddenly the tattooed guy was back with some tea and Christmas cookies. It was a little scary to me, but it surely was a pretty kind gesture.

If you ever wanted sheeps in you front garden, live in the suburbs of Levin.

Getting deeper into the forest unfortunately went hand in hand with more rain poring down on me. The track surely was beautiful, but I kind if wondered for four hours, why I do this to me (the fact that my shoes were socked with water after the first two made things not really more cheerful). When the hut appeared in front of me I was really just glad to get out of this weather and happy to meet some fellow hikers inside.
The next day I repacked my bag, since already it’s outer shell was soaked and the weather didn’t seem to improve. Than I got into my wet cloths, socks and shoes and we headed again for the steep and muddy path. I was really lucky to bump into this group of „TA“ hikers that gave me the opportunity to hook up. Otherwise I would have stumbled around on this unbelievable hard trail in the never ending rain and probably just turned around. Though it was really kind of dangerous. The path was in a constant mode going up and down through a moss overgrown forest that looked soft and cozy, if it wouldn’t have been all wet.
At the end of the day (I buried the cam in the bag as far away from the water as I could, so no pictures), being wet for more than twelve hours, we arrived in a little hut. There were beds for six, we were ten causing the hut to be really warm and cozy though a little humid.

Amazingly everybody made it work in this little overcrowded hut.

When you walk in rain for two days, you are already happy when the sky is just grey, but spirits really got up this morning, when a little bit of sun sneaked through the clouds. Apart from that it was again a really hard day of constant climb and slides through mud, water and woods until we arrived after 11h and 18 km at the last river. A little fear spread as it started raining but we couldn’t find the hut that was supposed to be there. To everybody’s delight we found it a little off track, with an oven and dry mattresses waiting for us.

Day four started as day three ended, pouring rain on the roof of the hut. It was pretty hard to get motivated to leave the warm and dry conditions for a 700 m very wet ascent, but nobody had much food left and at the end of the day civilization was waiting. After half an hour me and Sebastian were so focused on keeping our bodies moving that we missed the turn up the hill. I was just wondering a bit, but happy that it wasn’t so hard and 1.5 h later we found our selfs at the end of a loop. Luckily it was a loop and we didn’t had to go back. Anyway neither of us wanted to make a second attempt for the mountain, because that would have ment to arrive at 8:30 pm in Waikanae, so we headed back to the car park in the hope for a lift. We found it a knock at the rangers door later, spent a few hours in his home and when we arrived in Waikanae the sky was opening and the sun came out. Anyway I needed a bed, a shower, and a laundry and went off for the hostel in Paraparau beach, that would save me 1.5 h the next day, while Sebastian would try to do the hike he missed today, tomorrow in the opposite direction.
My last day should be turn out to be quite nice. I started in light rain (what a surprise), but it was stopping soon and around 2 pm the sun would burn down on me with all it’s power. Additionally there were no real climbs this day, though walking on the beach also was kind of exhausting.

The start …

… the mid break …

… and the finish of this nice day.

This day was worth every single step, but when I arrived in Plimmerton after 25 km and saw the hostel at the seaside I knew I wouldn’t walk any further.

What a few from a hostel lounge.

I checked in, got my self a good portion of pasta, red wine and a beautiful sunset at the sea.

I am actually not taking to many pictures of sunsets, but I enjoyed this one quite a lot.