Te Araroa Day 39, Whakapapa Village to National Park Village

Starting km: 1173
Finishing km: 1193
km covered today: 20

This day really was pretty uneventful walking-wise.  A nice clear morning on some bush tracks leading out of the village.  One turn after another leading onto smaller and smaller and more and more poorly maintained tracks (after our second turnoff I observed that seemingly every time Te Araroa reaches a track intersection it chooses the worse, rougher one.)
But all complaining aside, the weather in the morning was lovely (same weather forecast as usual) and the trails, which would have been wonderful if not for the recent soaking were still quite pleasant.

We finished up with a bit of road walking and were in National Park Village shortly after noon.

Brunch, finding a place to stay and food shopping at the (astonishingly well stocked) National Park Four Square (a chain of general stores/small supermarkets) occupied a couple of hours. 

Later that evening I prepared a huge wok-full of veggien Thai green curry and brown rice (the hostel kitchen had a rice cooker. My one indispensable small kitchen appliance!) with papadoms. Yes, a bit of confusion of cuisines, but I Luke papadoms and the fact that the Four Square sold them seemed like a sign.)

In lieu of further narrative (since, as explained, this day didn't have much else to narrate) I'll tell you a wee bit more about my walking companions:

Yvonne: Bright and sunny, though probably the quietest of the four of us. She's the one with the curly blonde hair. Just finished studying in Australia and headed home to Switzerland for a friend's wedding, to which the TA tan lines and gorse/blackberry scratches ensure she will be wearing a floor length dress and a turtleneck.

Paul: A Kiwi and the eldest of the group. This is his third(!!!) time walking Te Araroa. His base weight (weight of his pack without food and water) is an utterly ridiculous 2.5kg. Paul only eats One Square Meal bars when on the trail.  He enjoys telling everyone he meets about all three of the above. We all (especially the two women) kind of enjoy teasing him about this, but he's really quite pleasant to walk with, and it's great having someone with so much knowledge of TA (and NZ tramping in general) around.

Leigh: American from Delaware. She's just finished a stint playing soccer in Australia and us headed back to the US to "start her real life" as she put it.  Likes to talk about just about anything. Super fit and strong, I reckon she might be the toughest of the four of us.  Has managed to find NZ animals to be scared of (possums and eels) at least in part due to Paul's winding her up about them. Which is, I suppose, at least somewhat fair as she's probably the one who teases him the most about his pack weight etc.

Oh! And there were thunderstorms in the afternoon.