Today we climbed the highest peak in the North Island: Mount Ruapehu. It is an active volcano, because of its volcanic activities over the last thousands of years, it has many peaks. Of course we climbed the highest one: Turangi Peak with 2797m. We have tried to ascend the peak already 3 weeks ago, but […]
The word weekend is unknown to kiwi fruit pickers. If we get a day off it’ll be a rainy day. Today was a rare occasion as we had no work and the sun was shining. I think we made the best out of it. Yesterday after work we still had enough time to buy a […]
We returned our rental car 2 hours before we departed from the airport. The rental company provided a shuttle, that was pretty cool. When we arrived at the airport, we wanted to get to our gate. We couldn’t find it. Such a small airport! They just controlled our tickets, and then we were on the […]
The Te Araroa hike is going to an end. You can read in this post how we did on the last days.
Today was a very and sunny day. From the Starveal Hut it was mostly just downhill. The hunters that arrived yesterday really late left the hut at around 5am. We had the whole hut for us during our breakfast. The hut is at 1200m and we started with our down jackets on. During the descent […]
Today was one of the longest days we had so far on the trail, and definitely on this section. From the Tarn Hut we went over Rintoul Hut to the Old Man Hut. At no point we’ve been under 1000m and 10 hours walking time. Once the fire wasn’t burning anymore, it got freezing cold […]
Today, a summit was on the list. However, the weather was already beating us again. After a rest day at the hut, we were looking forward to moving on. From the hut we descended a few meters and then went up 800m. At the end we almost stand on the summit of Mt. Ellis. The […]
A beautiful day awaited us. But the night wasn’t the best. I woke up in the middle of the night. I laid on the flat ground and just a few breaths were left in my mattress. In the night I became suddenly awake: I laid on the flat ground. I had no clue why the […]
It was good to stay in Blenheim for three nights. Since our journey started we never stayed 3 nights in a row at the same place. We stayed there so long because we weren’t sure what to do next: Leave the next section out? Or just continue? The trail in the Richmond Ranges (the next […]
It was great to sleep so close to the fire although it got colder in the night. The last two days were exhausting for us. So it was time to have a more relaxing day. The trail followed down the valley past John Tait hut. During lunch we had some nice chats to some keen […]