Day 8 - Kaitaia - Saddle Rd Camp Ground
Distance Walked: 17.5 Km
Date 13 Oct 2022
Hitched 14Km
Trail Covered: 147.5Km
Weather: Bright & sunny
Note: This is were I got to improvise, I could have gone on another 8 - 9km, however it would have been my introduction to TA mud, so I thought I would do it fresh.
The first stretch out of town was on State Highway 1 (SH1).
And then onto rural roads.
My 11 O’Clock picture, notice the hand jumped in to supervise, this was also a 2 hour break which would normally consist of a wrap, Vegemite and cheese. Believe it or not the cheese last 5+ days out of the fridge.
What a view, these are the sorts of hills that we will be trekking through. The guy in the picture is part of a 2 man team that we ended up chasing all day until camp.
Shortly after the 11:00 picture we came across this little ditty, it looks like someone has a problem with their neighbour’s..
We are still heading up into this rural landscape, that’s Jeroen aka “Smoothie”
Yep, take a right at this intersection and keep going up. Take note of the white building
There’s that White House down below, this climb was done in under 1km
Yep, still going up. I was wondering if it was ever going to stop.
There are a number of what I would call holiday houses like this one, there was even a Mormon Retreat, silence please, spray free zone, it reminded me of the song “big Yellow Taxi”
So here we are at Saddle Camp, most of the food items on the table belong to Jeroen, he is a pack mule, in his food bag he carries 1kg of Millionaire Nut Mix (Walnuts, Macadamias, Almonds & Hazelnuts)
So a little bit of contemplation, what will I have for dinner and where will I set up my Tent and Ensuite. Of course the long drop here is a squat, and as I would say a Bee’s Dick from over flowing. Please I did save you the visual Ha Ha.
At the end of another day, once off the main road it was mainly a very big incline, I was so surprised to see both Horse Floats and Boats stuck in the bush I didn’t think that a car would get up to here, after tea a 4 Wheel Drive passed by we thought he may have been attending to his crop, believe it or not he came by at 0400 in the morning. At night, in these places it sounds like the car is going though our site.
All great fun!
Good Night