Te Araroa Day 25, Auckland Botanical Gardens to Hunua

Starting km: 645
Finishing km: 692
km covered today: Official trail kilometres, About 43, but in reality only about 30.

I was torn about how to approach this day's walk. It began with a roadwalk along a narrow, winding road that was shared with (apparently) over 100 heavy gravel trucks per hour.  I'd phoned the quarry and they said that the trucks started running at 06:30 or so, so there was no question of trying to beat them onto the road.

In the end I just took a bus to my furthest point in Auckland and decided to take a different roadwalk around this section.  True, it did mean that I'd miss out on the day's one section of bushwalking, but better safe than sorry.

After this the trail was meant to spend 60km or so in the Hunua Ranges Regional Park, but after massive flooding back in March, these trails were.still closed.

As such, thee whole rest of the day was roadwalking. Fairly pleasant semi-rural countryside, but also a bit boring.

Highlights included a.strawberry farm selling strawberries for (literally) twice as much as ones from the same farm had cost in Auckland, and being reunited with Cate, my kiwi tramping companion from Pakiri beach.

The best.part of the day was clearly the end. Around.17:00, just as I was starting to wonder where I'd spend the night, I received an invitation from a young man named Benjamin driving past with a trailer load of grass behind his tractor.to pitch the tent in his paddock.

He and his mom were lovely, and I got to.share the paddock with two Dutch cyclists, a ton of chickens, three very cute calves and a friendly (if slightly rambunctious) ram.

Now that I'm updating the blog semi regularly on my phone, photos may have to go without captions, as I can't seem to figure out how to do them.