Te Araroa Day 37, A Small Patch of Rocky Grass Somewhere on the 42 Traverse Track to Ketatahi Roadend

Starting km: 1111
Finishing km: 1147
km covered today: 36

This day followed a similar, though not quite identical pattern to the previous one.

After rising early and doing our best to shake the rain off if our tents (thankfully it had stopped overnight) ee spent a misty, humid morning on the 42 Traverse track. It was generally in pretty good shape and easy walking and made for a pleasant start.

We got wet a bit sooner than the previous day (or at least our bottom halves did.) The Waione-Cokers Track brought us s sizeable river crossing, followed by some muddy, slippery uphills, before settling into a long flat section of large ponds of rainwater (I went up to my knees in one of these when I stepped in without probing for the bottom with my trekking pole first!)

By the time we reached the end of the W-K track the sun had burned through the must and it was almost noon, so we spread our gear out to dry while we had lunch.

This period of dryness couldn't last. The weather forecast was the same as the previous day and once again the thunderstorms found us. This time we almost had them beat, walking long SH46 and only about 30 minutes from our destination.

As it was, however we were soaked once again. And the ground was even wetter. So it was that we decided to forego our planned camping spot at a private carpark across from the Ketatahi Road and head 1km up the road to the shelter at the end (start for us) of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

This was a bit naughty, as you really aren't supposed to camp there. But we would be much happier and at least arguably safer spending the night there in our sleeping bags rather than having a second night in a row in sodden, mode thunderstorm erected tents. And such shelters are in place precisely to provide emergency shelter from bad weather. So that's how I rationalized that.

Once we were under the shelter it didn't take too long to dry out and warm up.  Some of our company wasn't so fortunate. Several people came down the track wet and shivering, reporting hail, sleet and even snow up on the mountain.

One poor soul was unable to contact his ride out, as his cell network had no reception. Others reported an older couple still up on the tops. As dark approached we really hoped that they'd made the decision to spend the night in the Ketatahi hut some 6km up the trail.

With light seriously fading they finally appeared, sounding thoroughly miserable but relieved to be down and headed to their car only 1km away.

With this final departure we felt comfortably alone enough to tuck up in our sleeping bags and rapidly doze off.

We were shaken out of our doze by a car approaching on the road around 20:30. A police car.  As the officer walked up to the shelter I marshalled my arguments for why it was okay.  However as it turned out, this was unnecessary. He didn't care in the slightest about our sleeping under the shelter and had just come up to check on the late couple who had been reported as possibly still stuck on the mountain. Between the lack of parked cars and our report he left satisfied and we were soon after lulled to sleep by the rain on the corrugated metal roof above us.