Te Araroa Day 68, Heaphy Hut to Karamea

Starting km: (1862)
Finishing km: (1894)
km covered today: 32

My third and last day on the Heaphy was a short one. Once again I was up and on the trail (just) before 06:00.  The last 16km on the track follow the coast south of the Heaphy River mouth.  Though there are many beaches down below the track, it keeps well above them.  Though the west coast surf was comparatively gentle on this morning, it was still a constant roar, punctuated by occasional larger bangs that sounded like artillery and the clacking of softball sized stones being tossed around by the waves.

Above the beaches the forest had grown even more tropical-looking, now dominated by nikau palms, backed by the occasional rata for colour.  It was just over three hours to the end of the Heaphy.  Back to campervans, roads, farms and mobile phone reception.

It's easy to get a bit jaded about New Zealand's Great Walks.  But then you go and walk one and remember that there are good reasons they're called "Great" (beyond just tourism marketing.)

The scenery on the Heaphy was amongst the best I'd seen on Te Araroa.  The trail was very well maintained (to the point that I internally joked that the protests against building a road on the route in the 1960s were almost moot as they've now more or less done it.) The huts (especially the three more modern ones) are nicer than many urban backpacker hostels I've stayed in.  And despite the fact that the huts and campsites were pretty much all booked out, you still didn't see that many people out on the track. Most of the time it felt like you had the trail to yourself.
In short, the Great Walks are great.

With the Heaphy behind me I walked the 16km along the road to Karmea in another 3 hours or so.  Despite being at the end of one of the Great Walks, Karamea is also at the end of a not-heavily-used road and doesn't have a ton of tourist infrastructure.
There was a hotel, a motel and a fancy cafe/bar/hotel backpackers. I checked there to see if they had any dorm beds available, kind of hoping the answer would be no. I had quite a few km to cover in coming days and it really would be good to get a start on them (I find it amazing even myself that I've got to the point where it feels like a 32km day is being lazy.
On the other hand it had been drizzling on the walk to town and the sky looked pretty grey. And it was New Year's Eve.
In the end they did have a bed. And I decided I really would rather stop.
So I spent the day buying some supplies, cooking a huge lunch and dinner, blog writing, chatting with a lady who runs commercial tours of the Heaphy and watching TV.
As it turns out I (at least in the short term) made the right choice on two counts:
No one else was in my room so it went from being a pricey dorm bed to an inexpensive private room.
And around 16:30 it started pouring rain and continued to do so off and on.
It's only 22:00 now, so I'm not sure if I'll make it to midnight yet. I'll shovel some more food into me, maybe have another glass of wine and we'll see...