Finishing km: 1687
km covered today: 23
And... Done! My final day of North Island walking was actually a bit complicated.
It started in the morning when I took a train up to Paekakariki and met my mate Ryan for a coffee to discuss plans for the two of us meeting up so he could walk a bit of the South Island with me.
After that it was off to do the Paekakariki Escarpment Track. It's one of the newer sections of TA. It's been open for a bit over a year, is easily accessible from Wellington and is reputed to be really pretty, but I actually hadn't got around to walking it yet.
I'm happy to report that it is, indeed, lovely. Almost all of the Kapiti section of the trail is flat, following rivers, beaches and streets. This is the exception, however, climbing up and up along the cliffs that rise rapidly above the coast between Paekak and Pukerua Bay. But the trail is still quite nicely graded, with almost all of the steep sections being done with loads of stairs. (Between these and the fact that some of the first walkers of the trail had heart attacks, the Escarpment Track has gained the nickname "the Stairway to Heaven.")
The views of the coastline from up on the escarpment were great. Suitably appropriate for my final day of the North Island.
After reaching Pukerua Bay, the trail flattened out again, and cruised along the coast towards Porirua. Unfortunately I hadn't given myself quite enough time to finish the walk before I had to head home to let someone in to take our spare bed down to Christchurch.
I paused in Paremata, with just 4km left to go. At 17:00 or so, bed attended to, I headed back for one final easy hour of walking to complete my North Island walk.
1733km down, 1350 (or thereabouts) to go!
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