TA Day 80

TA Day 80: Saturday 8 March 2025

Raetihi - Mangaturuturu Hut

Both of us woke up in the middle of the night and had to go to the toilet. We then decided to move our alarm forward, and we immediately fell back asleep.

In the end we slept two hours longer than planned, and around 8:30 we finally got up. We knew Lulu and Jules weren't that much faster than us normally, so we thought we might be able to say goodbye to them. But we didn't, and when we looked at their tracking we saw that we missed them with mere seconds. Dang. Now we never got to say goodbye for real.

But we were lucky. As we sat down to have breakfast inside, it started to pour down, so we were glad we hadn't started hiking just yet. Kiyo was just about to leave, but stayed a bit longer to wait it out.

We made our way along the boring road to the touristy town Ohakune. Here we bought some food and snacks for today and tomorrow, so not a lot.

This town reminded us of an alpine town in the alps. It felt odd, being so close to Raetihi but being so different! Like all of the rich had gone to Ohakune and all of the poor had ended up in Raetihi.

As we left the town center we suddenly started meeting hordes and hordes of people going down the side walk.

We finally had to ask, and apparently they were all coming from the train. So that explained it.

The road continued. Up, up, up. Not very interesting and it felt like it took forever because not much changed. That is, at least not until we were above the tree line. We passed a LOTR filming location, and soon left the road. We were both so happy because this terrain reminded us so much about our terrain back home, in the Scandinavian mountains. Not just the weather (windy and colder) but also the moss and the little vegetation that was there. It was just the fact that we were on a volcano now, not just any Scandinavian mountains.

We walked alongside a really cool waterfall where the water looked white, but in fact it was the rock face behind the water that was actually white. It looked really cool.

Lukas tried to shortcut and actually slipped! In the mud! But didn't get hurt...

We finished the day with a super nice golden sunset, before reaching the hut just before dark.

In there we met a woman from Wellington and a guy from the Netherlands. We spent a lot of time in the evening talking and at one point when we sat there and talked, suddenly a hunter passed by with a dead deer over his shoulder. It was a strange sight for us.

Today's:

Distance: 32.90 km

Ascent: 1123 m

Descent: 404 m

Tent nights: 46/80

Weather: Mostly overcast