Te Araroa Day 69, Karamea to Seddonville

Starting km: (1894)
Finishing km: (1947)
km covered today: 53

I'd been struggling with how to break up the walk from Karamea to Seddonville (and the start of the next bit of tramping.) In the end I just decided to forget about breaking it up and do the whole thing in one go.

This was very much a day of two halves. The morning was spent walking along the road behind the beach. There was always a strip of farmland between road and beach, meaning that I only rarely saw the sea, and didn't get to go down to it until I'd almost reached the town of Little Wanganui.
But I could certainly hear the beach all morning. It was in a more energetic mood than the previous days and its roar was constant company. As was the sea breeze, which was nice, as the sun started to grow hot in the late morning.

After Little Wanganui the road turned inland and the sea breeze disappeared. Until some cloud came up around 16:00 it started to get uncomfortably hot. Having left the beach meant leaving the farmland too, and it was now dense native bush on either side of the road with lots of bright rata and matai trees and plenty of tree ferns. I was relieved whenever any of these overhung the road and provided s moment's shade.

An interesting feature of the road was a series of about half a dozen small signs marking the location of historical schools along the route. They were kind of neat to read, but with the possible exception of a few cycle tourists I felt like I must have been the first person to read them in a long time, as the print was small and they appeared at random spots on the road with no warning or place for cars to pull over to check them out.

I had lunch at Lake Hanlon, a small lake whose reputation exceeded its actual prettiness (on this day at least.) And the viewing platform was in direct sun, leaving me a bit grumpy about having added 1.5km to my already long day while walking  up to it.

After the lake all signs of human presence disappeared from beside the road and the bush grew to its thickest and wildest. I found it pretty cool that such a well built and busy road transited such wild country.

Eventually after a long climb and sidle along Karamea Bluff the road started back down. At the bottom the farms returned. It was gerting late (around 18:00) and I knew that the intersection near Seddonville mustn't be far away. However one turn of the road followed another and and it kept not appearing. I wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but my feet were a bit tired and this final km or two started to feel a bit tedious.

Finally then junction arrived, and the long bridge over the Mokihinui River (probably the longest one lane bridge I've walked over to this point, with the possible exception of the one between Waitangi and Pahia) and a quick 2km further on, Seddonville.

I popped into the hotel/pub/dairy (the only retail business of any kind in town) to buy myself a well deserved  ice cream. Visible through a doorway and across the bar were a couple who said hello and let me know they were the caretakers at the Holiday Park and that I should just go and make myself comfortable while they finished their dinner at the pub.

The Holiday Park was a cozy, charming and surprisingly busy place (good for them I guess... It was the height of NZ holidays, so if they weren't busy then they likely never would be) and a nice place to pull up after a long day on the road.

While I'm writing, a couple quick notes about road walking: it sounds easy, but its not. Sealed roads are hard on the feet and gravel ones are often even worse with lumps to poke into your soles.  And I've noticed a strange feeling when I pause during a long road walk. Almost like the way you still feel the roll of a boat after you disembark. I think this is because of the constant light bounce of me on the road and the pack on my back. Without the pack there's not enough bounce to make it noticeable. And on bush trails the terrain and my steps vary enough that I don't feel it. If I close my eyes or look up in the air I actually feel a bit disoriented or dizzy. An odd feeling that seems unique to long road walks with a sizeable pack on, and one I hadn't experienced before TA.

Anyhow, that's enough for now. Time to take down the tent and go have breakfast :-)