TA Day 103

TA Day 103: Monday 31 March 2025

Northwest of Karihoa Island - Bombay

We woke up in mist, and started walking before the sun had managed to fight it off. The trail was much better today, or well, part of it we walked inside a pasture instead of outside the fence where it was really overgrown... Then we followed a stopbank that was really nice. Flat and fast.

Once that ended, we had two options. Follow the trail, which we had read would be really time consuming and overgrown and uneven. Or, we could walk along the edge of the highway.

We decided to do the latter, which didn't look like a problem on Google Maps, and actually the Te Araroa trail would come up beside the highway for a little while as well. What was the difference of walking 1 km, or five times the distance?

Walking along the highway went great. There was a barrier and a wide shoulder, so actually a lot safer than a lot of NZs roads. Here it is quite common with 100 km/hour on almost every road, just like on the State Highway, but on normal roads there is usually not much shoulder.

Ever since we started road walking we've been encountering so much rubbish along the side of the roads which is really sad, but this road was the worst by far.

After passing two sketchy bridges where we had to balance on the outside of the barrier, on the very edge, we finally made it to Pokeno.

Quite a nice town actually, and we're glad we took this route. After some food we did the last 10 km on a bit smaller roads, all the way to Bombay. Here a very nice trail angel picked us up and took us to their place. Here we had food and a nice hot shower. We also got to meet her dogs, and one of them had puppies 🥰 So cute!

Today's:

Distance: 27.10 km

Ascent: 387 m

Descent: 181 m

Tent nights: 52/103

Weather: Foggy morning, then overcast